Soaring dollar forces tourists in U.S. to cut back

STORY: Tourists are among the victims as the U.S. dollar continues its meteoric rise.

Thousands of visitors to the United States are feeling the pinch of the mighty greenback - which scaled two-decade highs this month, driven by Federal Reserve interest rate hikes.

For British tourists, this feeling has been amplified by the collapse of the pound, which entered a near freefall on Monday (September 26) after the UK government announced unfunded tax cuts.

It meant the sterling/dollar exchange rate hit record lows – which has forced people visiting the U.S. to economize on luxuries.

Visitors from the euro zone don't fare much better, with the European currency also languishing at lows.

In New York, Dutch visitor Remco Spriensma told Reuters how he’s coping:

"Yeah, go to a restaurant for dinner. Yeah, we skip that, and we go, for example, to the McDonald's to eat something. Otherwise, we would go to a restaurant, maybe."

And he’s not the only visitor noticing a price jump.

Mariatta Torres, travelling from Saudi Arabia, has noticed a significant difference since her last visit:

“"I think the prices are really going up. So we came here in, like, 2016, and we still enjoy a lot of things, but now, in 2022, it's like all things it's going up. Yeah. We cannot say it's... it's affordable same as in 2016, way back in 2016. I think because of the pandemic that we experienced on, so, like, we're still coping up. Yeah."

Sterling hit a record low close to $1.03 on Monday, having plummeted 20% against the dollar this year.

That leaves British visitors to New York counting every penny.