Coveat Tourist

For all its diplomatic chilliness, France has long maintained a warm climate for U.S. travelers with its "tourist discount." Permitting 14% to 20% discounts on items paid for in foreign cash or checks and headed out of the country, the system is unique in Europe, has spawned thriving sales of everything from cheap trinkets to Citroens, is a major underpinning of Parisian haute couture. Now the government is moving to cool the trade with new rules that went into effect last week, tangling both tradesmen and tourists in customs red tape.

The discount scheme was originated as a way of building up France's foreign-currency reserves, but the Finance Ministry had long been uneasy at a loss of some $40 million in uncollected sales taxes over the discount's 13-year history. Cries for a crackdown rose this year, when the ministry discovered that as much as $20 million of the tax loss has been the result of some local larceny. Shopkeepers have been more than willing to grant illegal discounts to anyone who could pose as a tourist, including resident foreigners with checks from their home-country banks and Frenchmen using dollars and waving borrowed passports. It was time, declared the ministry, to have some "morality injected into the system."

Confusion at Customs. To shopkeepers and tourists, the new morality means a mess at customs. Under the new rules, which require customs-slip proof that the purchase has been "exported," a buyer can get his discount fairly simply if he has his purchase shipped directly home. But if he wants to take the goods with him, he may have to pay the full price, later haggle with customs agents for a receipt to send back to the store, which, he hopes, will then forward the amount of the discount. On the other hand, a shopkeeper can risk giving the discount to a buyer right away, in hopes that he will send back the customs slip when he leaves.

Predictably, all Gaul is divided on what tack to take with tourists. Small boutiques and big department stores such as Paris' Au Printemps are saying "no sale" to those who want on-the-spot discounts. On the other hand, Liz on the Rue de Rivoli, which counts on Americans for 90% of its business, will go on as before--though the firm is now providing airport-bound customers with buses staffed by hostesses who help with the confusion at customs. And at Dior last week, Director Jean-Marc Depoix comfortingly reassured his jet-set clientele that Dior's 15% discount would be granted as usual, added that "our foreign friends have been treated lightly enough as it is without adding this new insult."

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