On a daily basis, the press from around the world paints the situation in the United States in bleak colours. Consumption has gone steadily down over the last six months, the most famous shopping avenues (Fifth Avenue, Rodeo Drive) are empty, restaurant owners long for the times when Wall Street execs would spend impressive sums in their restaurants and – an utterly unconceivable fact in regular times – Wall Street wives have forgotten all about 500-dollar dinners, and have started to take… cooking lessons. On the other hand, the United States has turned into a destination coveted by tourists, who, stimulated by the still weak dollar, choose to spend their holiday there.
Business Magazin has talked to Romanian managers who spent their holiday in the famous travel destinations in the USA, and were able to feel the pulse of the crisis in its very core. Alexandre Eram, general manager of SonyaMod, a company that distributes international brands such as Peggy Sue on the Romanian market, and owner of the Z stores, travelled to New York for Christmas. ”Surprisingly, I found a normal country, especially since I was expecting things to be much worse, given the way the press had reflected the crisis. But when I saw the huge queues in stores, I started to wonder where the crisis was,” recalls the manager. However, the manager does not rule out the possibility that things may have changed after the holidays.
”I have talked to several American friends, and they told me that one cannot really tell if there is a crisis or not at Christmas time.” Sorana Savu, managing partner at communication agency Premium PR, who spent a two-week holiday in Miami in January, says that the American response to the crisis depends a great deal on the city and the region. Savu has chosen Miami and Fort Lauderdale for her holiday this year, an area she says is favoured mainly by American senior citizens. ”I think it’s absurd that in a city where you see Lamborghinis, Bentleys and Ferraris on the streets, which are expensive by American standards, employees of luxury shops should be very surprised to be dealing with receipts worth several hundreds of dollars. They said the only ones still buying were Europeans and Brazilian tourists.”