"Martin Hotze" wrote in message
...

who has less money? European consumers or the European airlines?

Consumers in general. I don't think the disparity is enormous and in any
case there's no question that a European with a decent job can enjoy a very
nice quality of life. Also, assuming that an American family and European
one would both budget say $2000 for a vacation, the European family will
likely be trying to spread it across a longer trip. In the US the typical
vacation trip is a week, occasionally ten days, once in a while two weeks.
And that's pretty much it for the year. When I worked for Bertelsmann my
German comrades would typically take three or four weeks off in the summer,
and two or three in the winter. Likewise when I was in Thailand a few years
back, most of the Europeans I ran into were there for at least a month. So
you guys need to stretch your money a little further even if salaries were
identical, which they are not.

tickets from Europe to the US east cost (both ways) sell for about EUR
500.00 - and with the fall of the exchange rate it is now about 40%
cheaper
to spend holidays in the US than it was in 2002. So be friendly to those
French .. they (and others) have the money to spend in the US-tourism
industry.

So long as they tip 15% in bars and restaraunts they will be quite welcome.

-cwk.