TRAVEL: TRAVEL

Host With The Most

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For the millions of U.S. tourists who will vacation abroad this summer, the world has its hand out—in welcome. Traditionally, the travel season opens in early July. But this year it came with the crocuses. When the Queen Mary noses out into the Atlantic this week, it will be the first time she has ever sailed from New York in early April completely sold out. On Easter Sunday white excursion steamers chugged back into service on the Rhine. In Rome, as the Judas trees burst into pink bloom, tourists who broke traffic laws got only a printed warning—with the mayor’s good wishes—to be good.

In India the Maharaja of Jaipur was in his pink palace in his pink city, ready to greet American tourists, treat them to elephant rides and put them up in his guest house. In France’s Dijon, knowing the U.S. tourists’ unquenchable thirst for cold drinks, the Terminus Hotel has achieved a master stroke of plumbing: faucets in every room dispense chilled red or white wine. In Rome, bartenders will stir up a martini molto secco at the drop of a 500 lira note; half a dozen short order restaurants are pushing Southern fried chicken and barbecued spare ribs with the slogan: “When in Rome, do as Americans do.” In Spain, Europe’s last stronghold of the “matrimonial” double bed, hotelkeepers are finally switching to the twin beds preferred by U.S. tourists. In Germany, where the mattresses are divided into three parts, innkeepers are turning reluctantly to Beautyrests.

Home to Home. From Agra to Zululand, guides and greeters are braced for the greatest overseas migration of Americans in peacetime history. Not counting the millions who will pour into Canada. Latin America and the Caribbean, more than 1,250,000 U.S. tourists will go abroad this year, spend a record $2 billion. By last week most ships and well-known overseas hotels were just about sold out for June, July and August; airline passengers had to take what they could get.

The biggest concentration of trippers (25%) will head for France, Italy and Great Britain, still the classic Grand Tour of Europe (see color pages). But the Far

East is opening up: Bangkok will be visited by some 10,000 U.S. tourists this year v. 2,000 in 1951, while India expects some 17,000, up 180% in four years. For the first time since World War II, the South Sea Islands will be easily available to tourists. In July Australia’s South Pacific Airlines will start twice-weekly flights from Honolulu to Papeete. By October two new Matson liners will be plying the San Francisco-Sydney run, with stops at Tahiti, Samoa and the Fijis.

Wherever Americans go, they can hardly avoid other Americans even if they want to. But few do. Around the world, they have one universal rendezvous for free advice, mail from the folks and, above all, the reassuring sight of fellow Americans: the nearest American Express office. It is the tourist’s “home away from home,” in the cozy words of American Express President Ralph Thomas Reed. A handsome, hazel-eyed man who looks like any other tripper when he goes abroad, Reed is the businessman who first applied to foreign travel all the ingenuity and resources of U.S. industry.

Reed has done more than anyone else in the world to lure the American abroad and make his trip a success. As the senior godfather and Grand Pooh-Bah of U.S. tourism, he has also pushed American Express farther in his twelve years as president than it had gone in the previous 93. Home-away-from-Homebuilder Reed has expanded the company’s offices from 50 to 344, which handle $3.5 billion worth of business, hiked its payroll from 1,500 employees to 8,600, boosted total assets to $621 million (up 318%).

Dates for Daughters. One in five Americans abroad will descend on the company’s offices. Many will travel on American Express tours; others will come in to arrange local sightseeing excursions. But many will be on their own, use the offices to cash traveler’s checks, compare notes with compatriots and ask the tourist’s endless questions. To handle the midsummer mass of vacationers in Paris, the company this month will complete a $750,000 modernization job in its 11 Rue Scribe office; in London, it is expanding into another building near its cream-colored headquarters in the Haymarket. Even after hours, Americans will still drift down to the offices, trustfully garnishing the doors with communiqués such as the message noted recently in Geneva: “To John and Mary. Just arrived. Staying at Hotel Continental. Elmer.”

For the bored, bothered or bewildered, American Express serves as hand-holder and troubleshooter, post office and police station, lonely hearts club and tracer of lost persons. It will make appointments with English-speaking dentists, steer dieters to low-calorie restaurants, get dates for the daughters of VIPs, supply baby sitters in Europe and bottled drinking water in Asia. “All these free services are like the salted peanuts on the bar,” says Vice President Louis S. Kelly. “They cost us money, but they sell beer.”

For the customer with both the cash and the thirst, American Express will charter and service a yacht, rent a villa on the Riviera, organize a tour of Pygmy villages in French Equatorial Africa, negotiate the lease of a private salmon river with the Norwegian government. Last year the company’s Louisville (Ky.) office gratified the ambition of a man who wanted to boast that he had been to Timbuktu, got him there by taxi, plane and mail truck. When Cinemactor Ramon Novarro had wanderlust one evening in Paris, a company agent worked all night to get him off by 10 a.m. next day on an eight-nation, twelve-city tour.

Womb to Tomb. For the tourist in trouble, American Express is a seasoned troubleshooter, will handle just about every imaginable disaster between womb and tomb. When an Egyptologist died abroad, she left a request that American Express have her cremated and scatter her ashes on the Nile. Asked by the U.S. embassy, in 1954, to look for a traveling Vassar girl whose father had died at home, the Paris office found that it had booked the girl on a train trip to Nice, followed the trail through five countries before catching up with her in Zurich. After a New York matron complained that her daughter had disappeared in Europe, the company finally tracked the girl down in Paris, where she had set up light housekeeping with a Frenchman. One Christmas in London, a middle-aged American visitor hinted that she was lonely and a company representative insisted on taking her home to share Christmas dinner with his family.Since many U.S. tourists report lost or stolen valuables ot American express rather than police, company agents have to be part sleuth, part psychologist. For example, as a wealthy Houston woman boarded the boat train for Le Havre in Paris last summer, she shrieked that she had lost $60,000 worth of jewels. “Don’t worry, lady,” an American Express escort reassured her, “You take the train and we’ll find the jewels.” The agent headed unerringly for the woman’s hotel room, found the rings and bracelets under her pillow, set them by messenger to the ship.FITs for VIPs. The company’s most pleasant labor is compiling FITs. i.e., “Foreign Independent Tours.” For travelers who want to be free of details, supervision and money worries—which is FITs—the company handles an average of 1,100 trips a month. The customer can theoretically leave his money belt behind, once the company hands him his blue wallet stuffed with prepaid coupons for every service he will need, down to the last cab, gondola ride, sales tax and tip.With each book of FIT coupons comes a neatly typed, individual itinerary that plots each move and ticks off every landmark, e.g., the Leaning Tower of Pisa is 13 feet off center because of the “unequal setting of the foundation.” The FIT customer pays up to 25% for extra services over and above the retail cost of hotel rooms and travel tickets, though the ordinary tourists pays nothing extra for hotel bookings an rail tickets. “The company gets a wholesale commission from the carriers and hotels.) Recent FITs: Marlene Dietrich, Cardinal Spellman, Perle Mesta (for whom American express helped arrange a trip to Moscow) and J. Fred Muggs, the TV chimp.For non-FITs who flock abroad on regular escorted tours the company offers 173 different itineraries in Europe alone. This year, for the first time, it has organized a 56-day Bible Lands pilgrimage shepherded by a Methodist minister, a golfer’s tour through 19 courses in four countries under Gene Sarazen’s auspices, a 73-day Cape Town-to-Cairo trip led by old Africa hands. For art lovers it has arranged a 46-day ramble through Europe’s museums andcathedrals; for those who like music a 50-day whirl from Bayreuth to Rome, Wagner to Verdi. In addition, 16,000 ocean cruise passengers (average age: 65) each year take American Express shore tours or buy the whole cruise, e.g., a 97-day, round-the-world trip (cost: up to $20,000) on the Kungsholm.

To American Express President Reed foreign travel is not only a business but a creed as well. Travel dollars, he preaches, build up foreign economies and cut taxes at home. U.S. tourists last year spent $100 overseas for every $36 that foreign nations received in aid from the U.S. Government. Reed contends that the spread can be increased still more through what he calls “Point Five—the economic power of the U.S. consumer directed to overseas nations through tourism.” As a result, Reed is welcomed by foreign government officials as a genie who magically produces dollars—with a little effort and investment on their part. Many European countries are now earning more dollars from U.S. tourists than from any other source; e.g., the $126 million Britain expects to net from American visitors in 1956 is more than twice as much as it will pull in from U.S. sales of British autos.

Good Will Ambassadors. Realizing that Americans do not endear themselves to foreigners merely by spending money, Reed also admonishes tourists to be “ambassadors of good will.” His company passes out booklets setting down Reed’s thoughts on tourist diplomacy (sample thought: “Everywhere the tourist is creating an impression”),

Paris hotel now costs from $7 to $12. France’s famed food is a bargain: Michelin’s Guide lists 2,000 restaurants that will serve a meal for a maximum $1.70 (tip included). In Paris, the visitor can take a $13 nightclub prowl that includes a dive billed imaginatively as “the center of the former underworld,” where everything is faked but the check. The Crazy Horse Saloon has a floorshow featuring cowboys, Indians and cowgirl stripteasers.

Prices are still low in Spain. More than 250,000 U.S. vacationers are expected this year, v. 50,000 in 1953, when Ralph Reed persuaded the Spanish government to join American Express in a travel promotion program that touched off Spain’s tourist boom. Palma de Majorca, in the Balearic Islands, is still the top tourist attraction, but the coves of Spain’s Costa Brava and Malaga’s sandy beaches will pull thousands of American sun worshipers.

House on the Hill. Germany is scheduling dozens of outdoor drama and music festivals, from the elaborate medieval pageantry at little Landshut in late June to September’s Festival of Berlin, for which orchestras, ballet troupes and theater companies will assemble from all over Europe. Salzburg’s festival in honor of Mozart’s 200th birthday will be one of the musical highlights of the year. Prices are moderate: from $3 to $5 for a good dinner, $10 for a first-class double room with bath.

The best travel buy in Europe this year is Greece, which is going all out to provide shelter and restaurants for visitors. The country’s fanciest hotel, Athens’ Grande-Bretagne, charges only $12 for the most luxurious double room in the house; dinner at the best restaurant costs from $1.50 to $2.25. With help from Ralph Reed (who called the Parthenon “that little house on the hill” on his last visit), Greece built up its tourist program from scratch in 1951 and earned $30 million—equal to 10% of the national budget—from tourists in 1955. Greece boasts only a few nightclubs, but offers top cultural fare, e.g., the drama festival (starring Katina Paxinou) at Epidauros in June and July.

The Big Tipper. Of all the American tourists who will squeeze half a dozen countries into a few fleeting weeks this summer, none will cover more territory than Ralph Reed, who will leave for Europe in three weeks. He not only is an indefatigable traveler, accompanied by his wife Edna, daughter Phyllis, 30, and secretary Eleanor Williams, but on yearly or twice-yearly trips abroad personifies Point Five sumptuousness. As an associate remarked recently: “The Old Man travels like the Aga Khan.”

Last year stocky (5 ft. 7 in., 190 Ibs.), square-jawed Travelman Reed rolled stylishly through Germany and Italy in an overstuffed, five-bedroom, private railroad car (cost: $428.80 for 800 miles), which was originally built for Goring. On a trip through Egypt, the government gave Reed ex-King Farouk’s two-car diesel train. When he stays in a foreign capital, Reed is saluted as the international host with the most; e.g., he rented the entire first floor of London’s Hotel Savoy to entertain 500 cocktail guests last year. Exclaimed one awed Londoner: “If all American Express customers tipped the way Reed does, the economy of Britain would be saved!”

Toughest Test. For American Expressmen from Belfast to Bonn, Reed’s arrival in Europe this month will be the tourist season’s toughest test. Inspecting an American Express branch overseas, Reed peers into cash drawers, spouts up-to-the-minute figures on local conditions, strides through the office dictating to two secretaries and scribbling in his own notebook. After a flying visit to the British Isles last year, in which he whisked through 24 offices in three days, Reed sent up a barrage of orders that rolled on for weeks, e.g., “change the pictures in Birmingham,” “the cashiers in Dublin leave their cash drawers open.”

When Reed arrived in Madrid in 1954 and told Manager Richard H. Henry to arrange an appointment with Finance Minister Gomez y de Llano, Henry cautioned: “That will take a little time.” Replied Reed: “That’s all right. Just so I see him today or tomorrow.” Two hours later, having conferred with Gomez, the U.S. Ambassador and half a dozen other U.S. officials, Reed was on a plane to Rome.

Homage from Five Flies. Reed has a short memory for distracting detail—he even forgets which year he became president of American Express—but he has a phenomenal capacity for cramming facts and figures into his head on any problem he is studying. Last June, on an exploratory trip to Hawaii, he gathered enough information in three days to decide to open a Waikiki office. “In those three days,” recalls a Honolulu businessman, “Reed knew more about Hawaii than 90% of the people who live here.”

When Greece’s King Paul summoned the American Express chief to Tatio to make him a Knight of the Order of St. George in 1953, Reed for once overstayed a 15-minute appointment, spent an hour talking travel with the King. Reed was so proud of the decoration that for days afterward, whenever he spotted an acquaintance, he would insist on showing off his medal, exclaiming delightedly: “Look what I’ve got!” In addition to decorations from France, Norway, The Netherlands and Belgium, Reed was honored recently by the Five Flies, an Amsterdam restaurant, which installed a copper plaque in one of its chairs boasting that Ralph Reed once sat there.

One-Man Gang. There are few U.S. companies of comparable size and complexity that are still run by one man, as Reed runs American Express. From the company’s managers all over the world, cables and detailed monthly reports all flow directly to Reed in New York. He is constantly mulling ways to expand and improve the company’s business. He seldom goes to bed before 2 a.m., frequently wakes up in the night to scrawl notes on the pad beside his bed.

At 8 a.m., when Reed arrives in his grey-carpeted office on the twelfth floor of the marble-pillared American Express Building at 65 Broadway, he plunges straight into dictation. By the time the vice presidents arrive—no later than 9 a.m. if they want to avoid Reed’s wrath —a drift of yellow memos has usually settled over their desks. Even on trips by car or train, Reed pores through his briefcase, dictating to a secretary.

Reed’s bounce is built in. The second son of a Welsh-born lumber company accountant in Philadelphia, he was a hard-plugging student and star footballer in high school. He won a scholarship to Princeton, but had to drop out when his father lost his job. He got an accounting job by day, went to Philadelphia’s Wharton School at night. At 29, he went to American Express as assistant to the comptroller, rose through the ranks, until in 1944 he became president.

The Great Invention. When American Express was formed 106 years ago, out of a merger between three eastern companies, its founders had no thought of handling anything but freight and money. Co-Founder Henry Wells in 1841 had pioneered express service from Manhattan to Buffalo, later began New York-Buffalo mail service by printing orange stamps and carrying letters for 6¢ v. .the 25¢ Government postal rate. As a result, the U.S. Post Office set up a nationwide 3¢ postage in 1848. American Express helped build its freight business by introducing C.O.D. shipments, but the most important American Express invention—and its No. 1 moneymaker—was the traveler’s cheque (the company has never modernized the spelling). The oblong blue checks first appeared in 1891, after J. C. Fargo, the company’s third president (and younger brother of Co-Founder William Fargo), returned from Europe fuming over the difficulty of cashing letters of credit. Ordered to devise a simpler system, his staff designed a check on which the buyer would write one signature at the time of purchase, another (to prove he was the legitimate owner) when he cashed it, thus devised a form of currency that could be carried everywhere and replaced if lost or stolen.

Trippers’ Triumph. From the outset, U.S. tourists eagerly bought the checks. President Fargo stubbornly resisted any more truck with tourists, even though American Express had a chain of import offices in Europe. “I will not,” he growled, “have gangs of trippers starting off in charabancs from in front of our offices the way they do from Thomas Cook’s. We will cash their traveler’s checks and give them free advice. That’s all.” Inevitably, the trippers triumphed.

When Reed took over, American Express was suffering from the impact of World War II, which had forced it to close 100 offices, slash its staff. Charging ahead with postwar expansion plans, he cut back executive deadwood, hired all the bright young men he could find, started sending G.I.s around Europe on tours months before V-E day. Under Reed, American Express traveler’s check sales have climbed 20% a year (1955 total: about $2.3 billion), outsell competitors’ checks three to one. Money orders, available at 24,330 outlets (v. 12,800 in 1943), have doubled. Loans to businesses by the company’s foreign banking business have increased 220% since 1953. The company’s 86-year-old foreign freight-forwarding operation has become the world’s biggest, lands many of the world’s oddest shipping assignments e.g., elephants from India, orchids from England.

The quietest division of American Express is its unarmed detective force. Since the company replaces millions of lost or stolen checks each year, its 100-man detective bureau has its hands full fighting forgers, pickpockets and counterfeiters, has quietly sent dozens of them to jail. In 1937, after the Government failed to jail Capone Henchman Bugs Moran, American Express nailed him for passing counterfeit traveler’s checks.

Almost alone among U.S. companies of its size, American Express is still an unincorporated association (though all foreign operations are handled by a wholly owned incorporated subsidiary). Since stockholders are thus technically liable for its debts, the company has always handled its investments with spinsterish conservatism: all but 6% of the millions in its kitty (Jan. 1, 1955 total: $460 million) is invested in gilt-edged securities and bonds. American Express earned only .16% on its $3.4 billion worth of banking and travel business in 1955. But investment income hiked the net to $5,400,000. Dividends have risen steadily, from 51¢ a share in 1950 to $1.15.

Jet Age Weekend. To boost company revenues, as well as to speed travel, Reed cultivates most of the top businessmen and Government officials in the U.S. and abroad. One postwar venture for the company was suggested by President Eisenhower, with whom Reed occasionally plays golf. Europe-bound on the Queen Mary in 1946, Reed was called in by Fellow Passenger Ike, who suggested that American Express could set up recreation, banking and sightseeing services for U.S. occupation troops. As a result, American Express now operates 115 overseas offices and 54 mobile units for G.I.s, has 30 agents to handle sailors’ tours ashore.

While more Americans than ever are going abroad and spending more, Reed constantly badgers U.S. and foreign governments to increase the bonanza by cutting passport and customs red tape. “Visas and other certificates and fees cost as much as $147,” says he, “or 10% of the cost of the transportation for a trip to eleven countries.” Reed points out that the 0.5% of disposable income spent by U.S. tourists on foreign travel has decreased from the 0.8% peak in 1929. But as travel becomes faster and cheaper, he predicts, foreign countries will lure more than 2,500,000 U.S. tourists a year by 1960, an increase of 50%. Says Reed: “American Express is already planning the jet age weekend in Europe.”