A previous post was doing fine until one person made it his personal discussion of the college system of France... Now that posting has and all others in the OP have been removed...
How do you see the affect that the introduction of the Euro has for both the tourist and the French citizen...? It appears that food, drink and hotel rooms have become very expenive for all...
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The Euro has caused a price increase in a lot of areas as everything was adjusted to the nearest higher number. That plus the cost of living index.
Some prices have also stayed the same. Like cost of some breads.
I find cost of life in Boston to be higher than Paris however.
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Traveler,
The post is still there. But to summarize, previous posts made it clear that Europeans across the board feel a price hike, while real inflation indexes show that the increase has been negligible.
TA members posted explaining the difference as a direct result of increased restaurant and housing prices. Housing alone has double since the intro of the Euro.
For the tourist, restaurant prices went up about on an avg. of 20% in my neighborhood (I did bother to keep track), which means a 20% increase in what is often a large part of the travel budget. The prices of museums and activities has reamained about the same, but then the dollar fell making it seem much higher to American and CDN visitors.
When traveleing I have the impression that hotel rates also went up about 20%, but I have no hard info on this one.
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Phread,
hotel prices have gone up. the first year of the Euros it was more like 5% but within the last 5 years 20-25% is very realistic.
This is also due to an increase of north american frequentation in Paris after 2002/2003. 2005 %26amp; 2006 have and will be really good business years and so prices got a little raise by the end of last year again!
Where you could get a double room for 500FF you now pay 95 Euros!
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Now that I%26#39;m talking about FF... I made a little calcul and one can easily figure out why especially for Americans prices seem so high...
500FF = 75 €
95€ = 115$
500FF = 100$
But the price increase ins%26#39;t 15$ wich is about 15%, the 75€ in 2000 were more like 60$ (conversion 1€=0.8$) so the difference for the US citizens in the last 5 years is more like 45%!
Maybe there is an error somewhere, I am no math crack...
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Several good replies and helpful to me in understanding the price increases in France since the Euro... Thanks again
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As far as your math and the way exchange rate has changed the dollars buying power... it all makes sense to me... But in simple terms there has been an increase in the cost to all in Paris for Hotels, Food and Drink... An increase of about 25% since the Euro... without any regard to exchange rates..
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Well 25% seem a bit too much... It is a capitalistic country (somehow) and things like hotels (for which there is a big demand) prices do vary non correlational to the rest, especially since Paris is the n°1 visited city in the world.
I guess 10-15% are realistic (this is an opinion, more than a fact). A plat du jour used to be between 45-60FF in a brasserie and now it is between 9 and 13€.
On the other hand products that people really want (high end restaurants for example) may have become 25% more expensive but that is also because people are willed to spend more ;)
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That may be true.... I have traveled around the world and accross the USA and find no logical reason for some prices... You can pay $10.00 for a famous sandwitch in NYC or you can buy one as good on the street for $5.00... One of the things that I have noticed in Paris is the 8 to 12 dollar add on for breakfast at the hotels... That would not be too bad for a full meat and potato type breakfast with all of the fixens even buffet style all you can eat... but for bread, jelly and coffee? That would be 5 star NYC prices...
It has been 5 years since I was in Paris and it just hit me how much more expensive it is now... This will be my 5th trip and we are looking forwarded to our favorite city in the world...
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I%26#39;m not sure most comparisons to pre- and post-€uro domestic economies are entirely valid. To begin with, in order for the EU to establish the EMU and the new €uro common currency, it had to turn a bit of a %26#39;blind eye%26#39; to both Germany and France %26#39;..cooking the books..%26#39; of their faltering national economies to meet the minimum domestic economic criteria for membership in the EMU-European Monetary Union. Without Germany or France (the two largest economic %26#39;engines%26#39;) fully participating members in the EMU, the new €uro would most likely arrived stillborn...and a bit of an international joke. Immediately after adoption of the €uro, national central banks and governments applied a fair amount of pressure on domestic economies to hold costs and prices down. So to a certain extent, subsequent price increases may well be a function of latent weaknesses in the original system. Beyond this, inflation took it%26#39;s natural toll.
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Some nice graphs comparing the %26quot;perceived%26quot; inflation versus %26quot;measured%26quot; inflation for both France and the total euro zone are on the page http://inflation.free.fr/index.php (bottom of page)
Remember that the value of the euro versus the (‘old’) EU currencies was fixed in 1999.
