Destination: Europe

By Janice Castro

Postcard from California -- Summer 1986:

Dear Rolf: We heard about Chernobyl, and we certainly hope you and your family are all right. I'm sure you'll understand why we won't be dropping in to see you in Stockholm next month after all. With those crazy hijackers, airport bombers and high prices, we're staying home this year. Besides, Europe may be exciting, but Yosemite in the moonlight can be pretty appealing too.

Postcard from Paris -- Summer 1987:

Dad, you wouldn't believe it! There are Americans all over the place. We heard practically nothing but Midwestern accents at the Tower of London, and today, on the Champs-Elysees here in Paris, these neat French teenagers were walking around wearing badges that said I SPEAK ENGLISH.These people really love Americans!

What a difference a year makes. In 1986 memories of brutal hijackings were painfully fresh, and the headlines were filled with reports of a radioactive cloud drifting westward over Europe from the damaged Soviet nuclear reactor at Chernobyl. Speculation abounded that Libyan Dictator Muammar Gaddafi might take bloody revenge for the U.S. bombing of Tripoli on American tourists abroad. No wonder Americans looked closer to home for vacation spots. One year later, as fears about safety in Europe have faded, Americans are grabbing their passports, packing their guidebooks and crossing the Atlantic again in huge waves. Tour operators, airlines, hotels and travel ministries are reporting heavy bookings and bustling business from London to Lucerne.

At least 25% more Americans are expected to vacation in Western Europe this year than in 1986, and the numbers may go much higher. During the first four months of this year, Lufthansa Airlines carried 32% more passengers from the U.S. to Europe than it did a year ago, and warm weather had yet to arrive on much of the Continent. Sales of American Express vacations in Europe are up 70% over last year, suggesting the possibility that 1987 may come close to matching the record travel year of 1985, when 6.5 million Americans spent $6 billion on European travel. Says Helmut Klee, deputy director general of the Swiss National Tourist Office: "Two months ago, we would have hardly dared to , predict such a spectacular turnaround."

The upsurge is all the more remarkable in light of the 20% decline in the value of the U.S. dollar against an average of European currencies since early 1986. That has made almost everything more expensive for an American in Europe. In Rome, for example, a double room for three nights at the King Hotel near the Spanish Steps that cost $246 last year now goes for $333. A taxi ride from a hotel on London's Hyde Park to the West End theater district, which cost about $4.50 two years ago, now runs closer to $5.75. During the same period, dinner for two at a moderately priced restaurant in Paris has gone up from about $26 to $36.

The slump of the once robust dollar has been offset in part by bargain air fares across the Atlantic. Roundtrip tickets to such destinations as Paris, London, Vienna and Frankfurt can be found in some U.S. cities for as little as half the normal roundtrip coach fares. The cheapest tickets, though, are often restricted to certain dates and advance purchase.

Whether they fly coach or first class, Yanks are landing in all corners of Europe. In Italy, where tourism accounts for 7% of the gross national product, the splashing Fountain of Trevi in Rome is once more filling up with the coins tossed by sentimental U.S. tourists. The Swiss state railways report that Americans planning vacations in Switzerland bought twice as many rail passes in May as they did a year earlier. The airline SAS reports that tickets from the U.S. to Scandinavia are "basically sold out."

Perhaps nowhere is the resurgence of tourism more dramatic than in Greece, where the number of vacationing Americans plunged by some 70% last year, after the 1985 hijacking of a TWA passenger jet en route from Athens to Rome. The incident was followed by a State Department travel warning regarding security problems at the airport there. Now flights to Athens through mid-July are heavily booked on TWA and sold out on Olympic Airways, the Greek flag carrier. Epirotiki, the largest operator of island-hopping cruise ships in Greece, is predicting a tripling of its business in 1987.

After last year's disaster, the European travel industry launched major U.S. advertising campaigns that stressed images of homey warmth and welcome. The European Travel Commission, a consortium of 23 member nations, is spending $50 million this year to promote Europe to Americans as "one of the safest travel destinations," while the Swiss National Tourist Office has mounted a $1 million publicity campaign that stresses Switzerland's "stability and tranquillity." A $3 million advertising blitz touting the pleasures of Greece includes a series of TV commercials, first aired last year, in which such all- American personalities as Cliff Robertson, Lloyd Bridges and Sally Struthers tell their compatriots, "I'm going home . . . to Greece."

Once they get to Europe, visitors will be entertained during the next several months by dozens of special events emphasizing culture, history and heritage. To mark its 750th anniversary, the city of Berlin is hosting a yearlong celebration of exhibitions, concerts, parades and street fairs on both sides of the Wall. Travelers in Britain can choose among such high- spirited events this summer as medieval banquets, historic re-enactments and major arts festivals.

Perhaps most important, security procedures have been tightened all over Europe. The airport in Athens, for example, now bristles with 1,200 security guards -- twice the previous number -- and many of them work undercover. France, once accused of lax attention toward the movements and activities of suspected terrorists, now requires all visitors to carry a visa. Cost: $15 for a three-year visa. The bureaucratic inconvenience of obtaining the document does not seem to be deterring tourists. The French consulate in Manhattan has been overwhelmed by a flood of some 2,000 applications a day and has opened a second office to handle the overflow. Jean-Marc Janaillac, director of the French tourist office in New York City, reports that 62% more Americans visited France last month than in May 1986.

Anticipating higher prices abroad, many U.S. travelers are planning somewhat less elaborate excursions this year and watching costs carefully. Says John Ueberroth, president of Minneapolis-based Carlson Travel Group: "Some cut a couple of days off the trip or look for special deals to save money." Catering to the bargain hunters, the New York City-based Inter- Continental hotel chain plans to slash rates by up to 60% next week at 30 of its hotels in 23 European cities and guarantee the prices in dollars. While they are in Europe, Americans seem to be paying closer attention than usual to such expenses as food, entertainment and gifts, which can often add up to half the total cost of the trip. Says Carolyn Bartkus, 22, a Houston homemaker who was visiting London with her husband last week: "We adapt and eat in pubs, like the British do."

The crucial task for the transatlantic traveler is to track down the cheapest possible airline ticket. Because of heavy competition between Pan Am, TWA, British Airways and other carriers, there is excess capacity on some routes. Nonstop flights now depart daily from more than a dozen U.S. cities, including Atlanta, Miami, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Dallas. Next week Continental Airlines will take off over the Atlantic with its Newark-Paris service. The airline is opening with a three-month giveaway: for just $1 more than the basic $667 roundtrip coach fare, Continental will throw in five nights in a three-star Paris hotel, a saving of some $250 a person, based on double occupancy.

Low prices can also be found in the bustling free-for-all of airline discounters. Explains Riaz Dooley, who runs a string of London travel agencies that specialize in cut-rate fares: "An airline ticket is the most perishable commodity in the world. Once the plane takes off, that empty seat becomes dead loss" to the carrier. For that reason, many airlines sell surplus tickets at as little as half price to middlemen known as "consolidators," who typically agree to buy blocks of seats during the slow winter months -- when seats on certain routes go begging -- in exchange for a supply of cheap tickets in the busy tourist season. The consolidator adds a commission of perhaps 10%, then resells the tickets to travel agencies in the U.S. and other countries. The agencies generally post the fares in plain, boxed ads in the travel sections of newspapers -- London: $190, one way. Paris: $205. Vienna: $260.

Some tourism officials fear that Europe is popular now only because, as one Greek travel agent put it, "nothing has happened this year." So a brief wave of anxiety was provoked by terrorist incidents in Rome two weeks ago, when rockets were fired at the British and U.S. embassies and a car bomb went off outside the American compound. But since little damage was done and no one was injured, vacationers took the news in stride. It will apparently take more serious trouble than that to spoil the festive return of Americans to Europe.

With reporting by Jenny Abdo/New York and Mirka Gondicas/Athens