Visitors Also Must Pay New Swedish Travel Tax

Having lowered overall taxes for its citizens, Sweden has recouped revenue thus lost by imposing a new value added tax (VAT) on a range of goods and services, including travel.

The VAT, which went into effect Jan. 1, imposes a 25% surcharge on all forms of transportation within the country, including air, rail, sea and road travel. The bad news for tourists is that they, too, must pay the levy, although the government is considering an exemption for foreign visitors.

Swedes, however, already have found a loophole in the law that enables them to avoid the tax on travel.

One way is to adopt a tactic commonly used by air travelers, namely “point-beyond” ticketing. Swedes riding on the nation’s ferries, for example, find it less expensive to buy a ticket to a nearby overseas destination and then disembark at their preferred domestic destination, since the overseas ticket does not carry the 25% tax.

Travel Quiz: Identify two U.S. states whose names each contain three vowels in a row. (Answer below.)

Hot Spots: One of the questions asked in a recent survey of 200 American Express travel agency managers was which domestic and foreign destinations their customers are choosing this winter. Here are the answers:

Within the United States, Florida, California, Hawaii, Colorado, Nevada, Arizona and New York proved most popular.

Overseas, travelers appeared to prefer the Caribbean, Mexico, England, Germany, France, Switzerland, Australia, Italy and Spain, in that order.

Quick Fact: If you had a quarter for every vehicle that crosses the Golden Gate Bridge in one day, you’d have $30,000.

Heads Up: The city of Dresden in Germany is trying to get rid of--that is, sell--a 22-foot-high head of Karl Marx that adorns the main square. So far, however, the city has found no takers.

Bogota Bound: Colombia no longer requires U.S. citizens to have a visa or tourist card before entering the country. Now, all that is needed for multiple visits of up to 90 days in a given year is a valid U.S. passport and a ticket showing when you will arrive and leave the country.

Dream Lake Garden: The Montreal Botanical Garden is designing what is believed to be the largest Chinese garden outside Asia and expects to open the five-acre site in June.

The $4-million project, originally conceived in 1987 as a gesture of good will between Montreal and Shanghai, will include elaborate waterways and rock gardens, as well as pavilions decorated with wood carvings.

More than four dozen gardeners from Shanghai are at work on the site, positioning the 2,300 tons of stone and peony trees in a 600-year-old style known as Meng Hu Yuan, or Dream Lake Garden.

Quick Fact: There are 1,242 airports in Texas.

Food for Thought: The cost of the average meal, exclusive of dessert and alcoholic beverages but including taxes and a 15% tip, rose 72% in Boston between 1980 and 1989, according to Runzheimer International.

Increases in others cities included Detroit 66%; New York 50%; Chicago 47%; Atlanta 45%; San Francisco 43%; Washington 41%; Los Angeles and Minneapolis both 40%, and Dallas 26%.

A Feather in Their Cap: After spending two years and $2.8 million trying to get the famous Trevi Fountain clean, authorities in Rome are not about to let it get dirty again.

As a result, a low-voltage electric field has been installed to dissuade pigeons from alighting for a quick drink and a shower.

Waterloo International: British Rail has started work on a new international rail station in London. Completion is scheduled to coincide with the 1993 inauguration of rail service between London and Paris via the Channel Tunnel.

The station is being built as a separate entity within the existing Waterloo Station. British Rail plans hourly service to Paris (a three-hour trip) and Brussels (about 3 1/4 hours).

Quick Fact: Visitors to the Statue of Liberty buy 135,000 miniature replicas of the statue each year.

Tanning Solution: Yalta in the Crimea, a popular holiday destination in Eastern Europe, attracts more than 2 million visitors a year, leading to the local joke that “they sunbathe standing up.”

Princely Fortune: Among the many items in 7-year-old German Prince Albert Thurn und Taxis’ $3.3 billion inheritance are St. Emmeran in Ratisbonne, a castle bigger than London’s Buckingham Palace, and 69,160 acres of forests--and area six times larger than the country of Lichtenstein.

Days of August: According to the U.S. Travel Data Center, domestic vacation travel was up 8% in August 1990 over the same month the previous year.

The increase, which contributed to the 1.5% overall jump in summer vacation travel in 1990 over 1989, was caused in part by Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait on Aug. 2, the center said.

“The Middle East crisis may have induced people to travel more in August, in anticipation that travel prices would skyrocket,” said Elizabeth Stewart, manager of survey research at the center.

Be Prepared: The 17th World Scout Jamboree Mondial will see an expected 32,000 boy scouts from 132 nations camping at Mt. Soraksan in South Korea between Aug. 6-16.

Quiz Answer: Hawaii and Louisiana.