Merhaba sag' i'

One of our local 'red-top' newspapers surprised me with the cover story a couple of days ago. The Abendzeitung went out of its way to extend a welcome to Arab visitors to Munich.

As well they might. This year from January through June there were 637 thousand visitors from the lands of Araby recorded, a rise of twenty percent over the same period last year. Even if we assume that fewer left home during Ramadan (although the heat in the Sandlandy may have been found by some inimical to fasting), the year could end with over a million having made their way to our city.

They are welcome because their stays are longer than those of tourists from other countries. They spend daily between EUR 500 and 1,000, which compares well with the measly average of EUR 192 for other visitors.

The newspapers notes that in 1997 only 8,000 visitors to Munich originated from Arab nations. How very few there must have been in the mid-eighties, when our home was in the district named Arabella Park. But even then there were enough hijabs and luxuriant beards to be seen in the area, noted for its big hotels and private clinics, that we joked about the tourists having mis-read the name of their local destination... Arab El Apark!