Paris is better than London!
Paris is better than London!
As you, dear readers, are thoughtful, intelligent people, I’m sure you will have an interesting perspective on that headline!
St Paul’s vs Notre Dame; the Eiffel Tower vs the Monument; a classical, formal street layout vs higgledy piggledy little lanes with strange names … and that’s before you get started on food, service and all the rest.
A few years ago, my Parisian friends used to love to come to London. It was cool, energetic and forward looking. There was that whole Jane Shepherdson Top Shop buzz and a different energy that meant that (forgive me), in comparison, Paris felt more like a museum than a living, breathing 21st century city. Today, not so much.
Whether you believe the UK is once again ‘the sick man of Europe’ or not, there’s no doubt that the economy could do with a boost and that the country needs to work harder to find growth, with all the benefits to society that brings. So, it seems that we are doing a grave disservice to the industry that is our country’s biggest private sector employer (hint: retail) by asking it to operate in a highly competitive global economy with ‘one hand behind its back’.
What am I talking about? The ongoing commitment to the idea that the abolition of tax-free shopping for overseas visitors is a good thing.
Major global cities in Europe are the most popular tourist destinations in the world and are worth billions of income to their host countries. For better or worse, it seems that Europe’s main appeal to the global tourism market is that it is becoming something of a museum … with its extraordinary and unmatched depth of cultural assets.
It might well be that the debate about which of Paris or London is better, is a score draw – they are both fantastic and both different from each other. But in one area Paris is winning by a mile (or at least a kilometer) … the queues of tourists outside the luxury boutiques.
With the coming election, whatever the result, there will inevitably be a raft of new legislation. Let’s hope someone has the common sense to reinstate tax-free shopping and give our beleaguered retailers a shot in the arm (and, as a consequence, our hoteliers and restaurateurs…).
