Originally Posted by
jpdx
The Euro was quite weak at the transition time, and it's rather arbitrary to pick this date as measure for comparison. When looking at the past performance of some of the Euro's stronger components, the current $ exchange rate looks quite acceptable (we're at about DEM1.46/USD1.00).
I choose to use the € currency's launch date for retail transactions, which also happened to be the date I started using the currency for retail transactions, and its entire history as used for retail transactions principally because any other date chosen would be even more arbitrary than currency launch date when looking at it from a tourist's retail perspective. Looking at other currencies and picking random dates would seem even more arbitrary. I guess I could look at currencies from a 10-year, 20-year, 30-year, 40-year, 50-year or 60-year horizion for a dozen or two currencies, but those could be just as abritrary (or more abritrary) a comparison as anything else or on some other basis. I don't know what would be less arbitrary from most tourist's perspective.
Looking at this from the arbitrary perspective of travel since FT's launch date, the USD has taken a hit when it comes to US travellers wanting to visit the main tourist destinations in Europe today compared to FT's start date.
