Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I read a few years ago 5% of the UK's GDP is from American tourism. Not a small number in the scheme of things.
Around 5 years ago when I was working in Colorado, I met a wealthy brit family who's source of wealth was from gift shops in the UK that catered to American tourists. At the time they were complaining because the pound was starting to be so strong it was keeping Americans away from the UK.
UK GDP is around $2 Trillion/year. Are you suggesting that US tourism in the UK is worth $100 billion/year?
"Jeff Hamblin, CEO of the British Tourist Authority, told CNN last year: "Roughly one in every five dollars spent in Britain by overseas visitors is spent by Americans, and last year 4.1 million Americans came here, and they spent close to US$4 billion.""
So that would be 0.2% of GDP.
As the UK is the top European destination for US tourists, that percentage would be even lower for Europe as a whole. So. really not a material number in terms of technology decisions being made by European financial institutions.
If one wants to visit a place (I am obviously talking about tourism here, work-related trips usually have to be taken whether one wants to go or not) and this place is not adapted to one's convenience, would one go there anyway, enjoy the trip and adapt to circumstances, or just say "I know this is your place, but is either my way or I will go somewhere else"?
Due to the rise of identity theft, it is good idea to inform the companies/banks that issue your credit/debit cards before leaving the USA on any trip outside the USA. Sometimes if you don't do this, the cards get blocked when you try to use them overseas.
It's happened to me and I've had to call them from within the country with my world cell phone. I tried the notification thing and that didn't work.
Due to the rise of identity theft, it is good idea to inform the companies/banks that issue your credit/debit cards before leaving the USA on any trip outside the USA. Sometimes if you don't do this, the cards get blocked when you try to use them overseas.
Eventually U.S. cards won't work in Europe at all as the mag stripe is phased out there. Right now mag stripes are still used as a "backup" during the transition period but eventually they'll stop accepting mag-stripe transactions altogether.
I love this quote from the article: "It's difficult for U.S. financial institutions to switch to the chip-and-PIN standard because they've invested heavily in the old technology. It'd cost the industry about $8.6 billion to convert, says consulting firm Javelin Strategy & Research." What, and they think it didn't cost European institutions anything to convert? Their infrastructure was heavily invested in mag-stripe technology too, but they're converting to chip technology anyway because they figured out that it would cost less over time to convert than to keep eating losses caused by easily forged mag-stripe cards.
Wow, I was surprised by this thread as I wasn't aware of this issue. Since '05 I haven't been abroad anywhere other than in Mexico and I don't use credit cards or even ATMs there.
Sooo, we're about the last ones in everything these days, huh... That's what I found while researching:
Judging by the post below, I'm not sure if the issue is limited to credit cards only or not... I'm not finding any info about problems with getting cash from ATMs and I don't get why the poster below talks about ATMs and credit cards in the same sentence...
Has anybody experienced problems getting cash from ATMs in Canada?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Finger Laker
Not because of the chip vs strip technologies.
I've actually had that problems using my card in Canada. The ATMs and merchants would not accept my credit card. It wasn't running properly. I didn't think much of it as I had used the same card throughout the UK and Europe while living over there for a 6 month stay. Back stateside I was going to spend a weekend in Toronto and figured I'd just pull cash once I crossed to have some Canadian currency .......... and was stuck relying on a limited amount of american dollars for the entire weekend.
It sucked.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
That's what I found while researching:
