duke

I have not been in Spain since the Euro intro. Have prices changed much ! Things like transportation and food!

Hugo

Prices remain the same as far as I can tell. The euro really makes it easy to shop as it is about even with the dollar. No need for calculations and if you move to another EU country no need to exchange money. Have fun.

BerryBerry

Not much...except the Euro has soared in relation to the US$ Everything is 10% higher because of exchange rate fluct's, not because of the Euro.

cris

I disagree,This summer in Europe, I felt everything had gone up,up,up, especially in Spain. i think part of the increase was a rounding off into euro to make it easier but what a jump.

Art

From my friends in Germany, Italy, Belgium and France, prices have definitely gone up. In some(rare) cases they just changed the local currency to euro and left the number the same.

alice

hi, as I am from europe,I can tell you: prices have definitely gone up,nearly everything became more expensive.

Patrick

ON an extended trip this summer, much of it in Italy, I felt we were doing cheaper hotels than usual, yet somehow, when all the accounting was done, we spent nearly 35% more than usual. About 10% of that was due to the exchange rate loss of dollar to Euro, but the rest was because prices have definitely gone up and up.

Joy

I agree with the above posters. We were in France this summer and indeed the prices of goods and services are more expensive (and we go to France every year). For next summer, I was booking a hotel in the Amalfi Coast which we used in June 2001 and the price of the room has gone up 26%.

Patrick

I just reviewed this post and realize I must have had too much turkey yesterday. I meant that overall it was about 25%, not 35% higher. My turkey stuffed fingers must have hit the wrong keys.

Ann

It depends on the stores and hotels you use. I had spent a lot of time in Florence when they used the Lira. I went back within a year and they were using the Euro. Some stores I frequented had changed one Lire to one Euro when it should be 2 Lire to one Euro. The same thing I bought the year before cost double. I wouldn't pay it and went to another store.

topaz

I just got back from Florence two weeks ago. I found that everything was as expensive as my city in NE US. What got me was the commission charge at the change places. What a rip. If they gave you 98 to one dollar, then they hit you with as high as a 7% service fee. Places that advertise no commission give you a lower rate of 94-96 to the dollar when you convert to euros.

xxx

I hope that was enough to make you realize, Topaz, that you made a big mistake. You should have been drawing cash from an ATM and charging everything else on a credit card to avoid those charges.<BR>Converting money in stores or change booths is a BIG mistake!!!<BR><BR>Unless your credit cards have totally failed and your ATM doesn't work (maybe a 1 in 5,000 possibility), anyone who uses a change office to convert money is a FOOL!!! Oh, unless of course, you really don't care about losing money.

ron

According to European Union data, consumer prices in the Euro area are up 2.3% over the prices a year ago (October 2002 over October 2001). This is the same rate of inflation as the previous year (Oct 2001 over Oct 2000). This year’s inflation range is from 1.3% in Belgium and Germany to 4.4% in Ireland. Unless we believe that the stastical agencies are systematically lying, the 15%, 26% and 100% increases mentioned above would seem to be isolated experiences.<BR><BR>More practically, don't you think there would have been rioting in the streets if 300 million Europeans were subjected to those kinds of price increases?

Patrick

Ron, I think you're missing the point. We're really talking about the prices that affect tourists here -- hotels, restaurants, attractions, etc. Maybe the regular consumer prices have not risen that much, but I too noticed hotels that nearly doubled in cost between 2000 and 2002. And wine with dinner seemed to take a big jump -- at least in the similar restaurants we dined it. I keep a journal and was surprised how much more we spent for similar meals in the same restaurants two years apart.

Gretchen

Just returned from France--our first trip since Euro conversion. We were there twice last year. I think our trip was about 10-15% more expensive across the board--hotel (same hotel), restaurants, etc. The hotel certainly did NOT double as one post said--exactly 10% more. Restaurants that were 200FF prix fixe (with the FF at about 7) were 33?=10%.

ron

Perhaps you are right, Patrick, but it would be interesting to know what caused this apparently independent decision on the part of accommodation and dining sectors to decide to use the euro conversion to gouge their customers, while no other sectors of the economy made the same choice. <BR><BR>And this is not really about gouging foreigners, since 70% of tourists (as measured in non-resident nights in hotels or similar establishments)to the EU are from the EU. (8% are from the US.)

Bob C

I compared prices between 2001 and 2002. I compared Euro to French Franc using the rate of 6.55957 to the Euro. I also compared the Mark to the Euro. The only area I could check were the hotels I had looked into for a upcoming trip. I found the average to be about a 10% increase betwee 2001 and 2002.

Economist

<BR><BR>Businesses that cater to tourists may have used the introduction of the euro to significantly raise prices, but they didn't need that for a reason. They can raise prices whenever they want, to whatever level they want, as long as the market will bear these prices. <BR><BR>If higher prices have remained in place that means that the market will, in fact, bear these prices and that, in a sense, these tourist-related goods and services were underpriced before. <BR>

xxx

It appeared when we were there this year, that they were trying to make the differences up for the losses due to 9/11. Too few tourists to fleece.

xxx

<BR><BR>I've always done my part by boycotting those outrageously-priced four and five star hotels. The nerve of those hoteliers, charging prices like that. You'd think they were capitalists or something.