Paris Flea Mart Tops This Shopping Chart

Ever wonder where you’d go shopping if the world was yours to wander? Well, Weissmann Travel Reports in Austin, Tex., has come up with a list that will set those daydreams in motion.

The travel information service company, which publishes destination information used by travel agencies worldwide, has compiled a list of what it considers the top 10 shopping experiences in the world.

Leading the list is the Marche aux Puces (Market of Fleas) in the Porte de Sait-Ouen district of Paris, where shoppers can lose themselves amid more than 3,000 sidewalk stands and permanent stalls. Also included among the top 10 are such diverse experiences as Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills and the Sunday Market in Kashgar, China. At the former, you can buy camel-hair coats; at the latter, camels themselves.

Weissmann Travel Reports’ Top 10:

1. Marche aux Puces, Paris.

2. Kowloon, Hong Kong.

3. Sunday Market, Kashgar, China.

4. Rodeo Drive, Beverly Hills, and Rue St. Honore, Paris.

5. Ubud, Bali, Indonesia.

6. The Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

7. Harrods’ Food Halls, London, and Fauchon in Paris.

8. Sotheby’s, London.

9. West Edmonton Mall, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

10. The Medina, Fez, Morocco.

Travel Quiz: More than 18 billion of these were made in the United States in 1989. What are they? (Answer below.)

Greek Gold: Californians will have the opportunity to view some priceless treasures from Europe and the Near East when an exhibition of gold jewelry and ornaments from the Benaki Museum in Athens, Greece, is put on display in the state.

The exhibit, which already has visited Dallas and New York, comes to California this month. It will be at the San Diego Museum of Art Feb. 16 to March 31, and at the Fine Arts Museum in San Francisco April 27 to June 30.

Quick Fact: There are nine television sets for every 1,000 people in Kenya. In the United States, there are 790 per 1,000.

Clean Air Act: ITT Sheraton plans to designate at least one-quarter of the 24,432 rooms in its 44 hotels in the United States and Canada as nonsmoking. Previously, 10% of Sheraton’s rooms were so designated.

Big Spenders: Japanese visitors to the United States spend more than any other nationality, an average of $3,400 per person, per trip.

Tourist Taxes: Florida has rejected a proposal by the state’s Department of Natural Resources to impose a $1 airport-arrival tax and a 50-cent highway toll on travel to the Florida Keys. The taxes were part of a plan to raise $10 million a year to help protect the nation’s only living coral reef.

Instead, the state cabinet has proposed a variety of other taxes, including a $5 tax on scuba divers or snorkelers and a $2 license to catch crawfish. In addition, boat owners in Monroe County will have to pay a mandatory $12 boat license fee.

Funds generated by these means will be used to create and maintain a marine sanctuary that will extend one mile into the Atlantic Ocean and 10 miles into the Gulf side of the Keys.

Emerald Greens: Club Med has opened a new resort at Waterville on the Ring of Kerry in Ireland. The emphasis, not surprisingly, is on golf and fishing.

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

Flag-Waving Time: No fewer than five countries celebrate independence days in February: Sri Lanka on Feb. 4, Grenada on Feb. 7, St. Lucia on Feb. 22, the Dominican Republic on Feb. 27 and, oh, yes, Kuwait on Feb. 25.

The Gulf War and Iraq’s occupation will effectively prevent Kuwait from celebrating the date this year, of course, but the recapture of its territory could well give it yet another independence day to celebrate.

Quick Fact: There are 498 train stations in the United States.

Dollar Signs: State governments will spend more than $365 million on travel and tourism development and promotion in the current fiscal year, according to the U.S. Travel Data Center in Washington, D.C.

The figure represents a 5% increase over the previous year and a whopping 400% increase over 1980, when the total spent by all 50 states was just $90 million. In addition, the average state travel office budget has climbed from $6.8 million a year in 1989 to $7.1 million in 1990.

Illinois leads the states with a travel promotion budget of $32 million, $9.5 million more than second-place Hawaii.

Beached: Princess Cruises has announced that it will develop a private beach at the isolated southern tip of Eleuthera in the Bahamas for use by its passengers. The project will include construction of a pier for use by cruise line tenders, landscaping and picnic facilities. The spot will be visited by the Royal Princess this fall.

Quiz Answer: Coins. Exactly 18,033,506,018 were minted in the United States in 1989.