New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1920-08-01
Swiss Hotels
Wait i'm Vain
For Tourists
Seven or More Servitors to
Lone American Guest Not
an Uncommon Sight This
Season at the HOstclries
Prices Are Sky High
Moreover, Customs Officers
at Almost Every Turn
inconvenience Traveller


GENEVA, July IL Especially The
American tourist is Switzerland's pres
ent day Man of Mystery, and the ques-
ton is, "Whcre is hc?"
One reads of the thousands and thou
sands of passport applications which
are inundating the State Department;
the cables bring news of the fotllas
of ships, laden with travellers, 1914
Baedekers and booze which knows no
law but the three mile limit, which
leave New York daily. One gets the
idea that the European exodus is no
less pronounced than the one which
Mark Twain so delightfully."- described
in "Innocents Abroad"
And then one travels through Swift
zerland where there are more hotels
to the square Alp than in any other
nation, and is greeted by vast, de-
serted dining rooms and salons, by shut
tered W VS. and by legions of SER
wants, all of whom seem to wonder
hungrily if the newcomer at last por-
tends the coming of that flood damned
these six years.
Doubtless the statistical bureau at
Berne has exact figures on this matter
Not improbably they would show, as
the majority of the hotel keepers as
sert, that this years tourist crop is n
bumper one But if the testimony of
ones own eyes, of friends, of local
newspapers and of some few hotel men
who talk frankly is to be credited, the
tourist crop is rank failure.
Hotel Keepers Wary
From Geneva to Zurich, from Basic
to the Great Saint Bernard, the story
is much the same. There are in each
place sprinkling of persons who are
obviously English or American, and
the majority of them turn out to be
English.
Hotel keepers are inclined to be wary
when talking Of their business status.
One at Berne last week the propric-
tor of large establishment in the cen
ter of the city-asscrtcd that business
was quite good Notwithstanding the
fact that, although it was the dinner
hour, there were exactly two persons
in the dining room.
Another at Lucerne was entirely nom
committal, but here your correspond
cnt stalked through seemingly endless
deserted corridors to an ornate but OBJ
viously long unused bathroom for a
bath which cost him GO cents, not
counting the tips to the scrvitors who
lined up outside when they heard that
some one actually was bathing
In distinction to these was boniface
at Murrcn. His hotel is pcrched diz-
lilly upon the height above the valley
of Lauterbrunnen, and commands SUI
pcrb view of the Jungfrau. one of the
really famous establishments On Sat-
urday night, July 3, there were exactly
seven guests in this hotel, which would
not be full with 800.
Six Of these arrived at the same time
as your CORES pondent; the other stated
plaintivcly that he had been entirely
alone in the vast place for week
Here, again, there was the experience
of being alone in dining rooms where
the walters footballs resoundcd noisily
and desolately, and where the prog
rcss of quest along corridor
sounded like the chariot race in ben
Hur." This landlord frankly admitted
the absence of tourists, but said he
hoped for better days.
No Tourists Anywhere
A traveller who returned yesterday
from Zermatt, down in the south, re
ported the same absence of tourists.
And when Zermatt, with its glaciers;
Lucernc, with its wonderful Lake of
the Four C&ntons, and the Intcrlak en-
Lauterbrunfen Grundclwald region,
with its combination OF lakes and
mountains, cannot produce tourists,
there are few places in Switzerland
that can