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Show UNCLE SAM has been lending a helping hand to many parts of the world for some time now with, of course, the average American helping to foot the bill. Now the world is beginning to share even greater benetits in the form of American dollars being ipent in a big travel boom. Expenditures by Americans on foreign travel are fast becoming a significant economic force on the international scene. How big is this flow of dollars? Figures compiled by the U.S. Department of Commerce Com-merce estimate that foreign travel by Americans Is on the verge of becoming a $2 billion dollar business. busi-ness. Expenditures in 1957 were over $1.9 billions and a further rise is expected this year despite unsettled un-settled economic conditions. By contrast, expenditures by Americans for foreign travel were little more than a billion dollars as recently as 1!)50, or About half the current annual to-, to-, Ul. Foreign travel Is one of the American expenditures that has shown an exceptionally large expansion ex-pansion over recent years, with the percentage rise substantially exceeding the growth In personal Income In the period. From the point of view of the international flow of funds and relationship re-lationship to world trade, expenditures expendi-tures by Americans on foreign travel trav-el have been providing the world with more dollars than an single Item imported into this country Petroleum imports into the United States last year aggregated just over $lVi billions, for example, and coffee, the No. 2 import item, came close to $1.4 billions. As against this, expenditures by Americans outside the country in 1957 were almost $1.4 billions, and an additional quarter bill,on dollars were paid to foreign carriers for j transportation, bringing the foreign share of American travel expenditures expendi-tures to more than $1.6 billions. U.S. shipping companies and airlines air-lines benefited also, receiving over $300 millions in fares Canada and Mexico are the two leading beneficiaries of American expenditures abroad, their share of these outlays adding add-ing up to almost 40 per cent of the total. Expenditures by U.S. travelers in Canada amounted to $340 millions In 1957. and In Mexico Mex-ico to just under $300 millions. About a half billion dollars is spent in countries In Western Europe, with Italy, France and the United Kingdom in the lead. This country likewise benefits from expenditures by foreign visitors visi-tors to these shores. Such spending in the United States, including fares paid by foreigners to United States carriers, came to almost $800 millions in 1956. a larger amount than this country received in that year from such major exports ex-ports as cotton or electrical machinery ma-chinery and apparatus |