Shopping Spoken Here

It may be a dubious honor for the last remaining superpower, but the U.S. can now claim to be the bargain basement of the world. Signs of this distinction are everywhere this summer — atop the Empire State Building, for instance, where Klaus Graumann, 27, a molecular biologist from Austria, is snapping pictures with his just acquired Olympus camera, wearing jeans, a polo shirt and running shoes also bought during his visit. “We say, ‘O.K., we’ve seen the museums. Let’s get a sandwich and go to the department store,’ ” notes Graumann.

The U.S. has long been one of the world’s most popular tourist destinations, as much for its open spaces as for its cut-rate prices on such goods as consumer electronics and sneakers. But this year foreign visitors are being lured in near record numbers by the very weak dollar, which has made good deals even better, and by the new efficiency with which American packaged-tour companies move tourists in and out of stores. Rock-bottom retail prices — anywhere from 30% to 70% less than those in Europe and Asia — are expected to bring some 47 million visitors to the U.S. this year, compared with 45.8 million last year. They will leave behind an estimated $79 billion, according to the U.S. Travel and Tourism Administration — up from $74 billion last year.

Every week thousands arrive with empty suitcases ready to be filled. As a result, the U.S., with a trade deficit that grew $130 million in the past 12 months, has come to appreciate what other countries learned long ago: that an influx of foreign tourists may not always be convenient, but it does put money in the bank. Compared with American tourists abroad, visitors to the U.S. stay longer and spend more money at each stop: an average of 12.2 nights and $1,624, vs. the Americans’ four nights and $298.

Airlines have begun to cater specifically to the itinerant bargain hunters. Between October and March, Northwest Airlines offered a “Shop Till You Drop” tour that flew Britons and Japanese to the Mall of America in Bloomington, ) Minnesota, a 4.2 million-sq.-ft. behemoth with 420 stores. On the plan for the Britons, single-minded consumers boarded a plane in London late Friday afternoon, got to Minneapolis Saturday morning, shopped all day and arrived back in London early Sunday. “We compared a dozen items — perfumes, blue jeans, fancy stationery items like Montblanc pens — bought at the Mall of America to what you would pay in London,” says Doug Killian of Northwest’s public relations department, “and the difference was nearly enough to pay for the entire package.”

At Sawgrass Mills near Fort Lauderdale, Florida, which at 2.2 million sq. ft. claims to be “the world’s largest outlet mall,” a third of the 17.5 million annual visitors are foreign tourists. On a typical summer day 13 busloads arrive, spending an average of $200 to $300 a person in as little as 90 minutes. Tours are met by trilingual greeters who hand out shopping bags. The mall provides a foreign-currency exchange counter for anyone who needs more money fast. Says Jay Santos, vice president of ACC Tours, which shepherds 100,000 international visitors a year: “We have to rent U-Haul trucks to carry the purchases behind the buses, and we always rent one or two extra hotel rooms per busload of visitors just for the packages.”

Despite worldwide headlines about its grisly crimes and other urban horrors, New York City still ranks No. 1 with foreign tourists, and savvy department stores eagerly exploit the city’s popularity. Foreign shoppers are so cherished at Bloomingdale’s that the department store established an international service desk last year to provide customers with personal shopping assistants fluent in 30 languages and, if necessary, with help arranging to ship purchases home. Says Adrienne Cleere, vice president of international marketing: “There can be no more lucrative and profitable shoppers. They don’t return merchandise, they’re not as sale conscious, and they buy more name-brand goods.”

Perhaps the biggest shopping binge of the summer was carried out in Los Angeles by Brazil’s World Cup team. The newly crowned champions and their entourage, exuberant from a 3-2 penalty shoot-out victory over Italy in nearby Pasadena, hauled home some 12 tons of large-screen television sets, computers, fax machines, microwave ovens, dishwashers — and even a leather saddle. Their flight from Los Angeles was delayed four hours because loading took much longer than expected, and on arrival in Rio de Janeiro five trucks were needed to carry the stuff away. When Brazilian customs ordered the team members to declare their excess baggage — citizens are permitted to bring as much as $500 worth into the country duty free — the players refused and threatened to boycott the victory parade. Brazil’s tax czar, Osiris Lopes Filho, insisted on collecting what was initially estimated as $1 million in customs duties. When he was overruled by President Itamar Franco, Lopes resigned. “Nobody can be above the law,” he said. But for merchants counting their money back in the U.S., the incident was a perfect advertisement for an America that has turned millions of foreign tourists into shopping champions.