Host With The Most
(See Cover)
For the millions of U.S. tourists who will vacation abroad this summer, the world has its hand out—in welcome. Traditionally, the travel season opens in early July. But this year it came with the crocuses. When the Queen Mary noses out into the Atlantic this week, it will be the first time she has ever sailed from New York in early April completely sold out. On Easter Sunday white excursion steamers chugged back into service on the Rhine. In Rome, as the Judas trees burst into pink bloom, tourists who broke traffic laws got only a printed warning—with the mayor's good wishes—to be good.
In India the Maharaja of Jaipur was in his pink palace in his pink city, ready to greet American tourists, treat them to elephant rides and put them up in his guest house. In France's Dijon, knowing the U.S. tourists' unquenchable thirst for cold drinks, the Terminus Hotel has achieved a master stroke of plumbing: faucets in every room dispense chilled red or white wine. In Rome, bartenders will stir up a martini molto secco at the drop of a 500 lira note; half a dozen short order restaurants are pushing Southern fried chicken and barbecued spare ribs with the slogan: "When in Rome, do as Americans do." In Spain, Europe's last stronghold of the "matrimonial" double bed, hotelkeepers are finally switching to the twin beds preferred by U.S. tourists. In Germany, where the mattresses are divided into three parts, innkeepers are turning reluctantly to Beautyrests.
Home to Home. From Agra to Zululand, guides and greeters are braced for the greatest overseas migration of Americans in peacetime history. Not counting the millions who will pour into Canada. Latin America and the Caribbean, more than 1,250,000 U.S. tourists will go abroad this year, spend a record $2 billion. By last week most ships and well-known overseas hotels were just about sold out for June, July and August; airline passengers had to take what they could get.
The biggest concentration of trippers (25%) will head for France, Italy and Great Britain, still the classic Grand Tour of Europe (see color pages). But the Far
East is opening up: Bangkok will be visited by some 10,000 U.S. tourists this year v. 2,000 in 1951, while India expects some 17,000, up 180% in four years. For the first time since World War II, the South Sea Islands will be easily available to tourists. In July Australia's South Pacific Airlines will start twice-weekly flights from Honolulu to Papeete. By October two new Matson liners will be plying the San Francisco-Sydney run, with stops at Tahiti, Samoa and the Fijis.
Wherever Americans go, they can hardly avoid other Americans even if they want to. But few do. Around the world, they have one universal rendezvous for free advice, mail from the folks and, above all, the reassuring sight of fellow Americans: the nearest American Express office. It is the tourist's "home away from home," in the cozy words of American Express President Ralph Thomas Reed. A handsome, hazel-eyed man who looks like any other tripper when he goes abroad, Reed is the businessman who first applied to foreign travel all the ingenuity and resources of U.S. industry.