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You are here: Home Finance & Business Financial crisis leaves euro with new popularity A golden new gift option for air travellers?

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29/06/2009A golden new gift option for air travellers?

A German businessman opens gold vending machines in European airports.

Frankfurt -- Tired of buying perfume, chocolates or wine for your spouse while flying home? Looking for a special and safe investment in these turbulent times?

Passengers who clear security at Frankfurt airport and fear inflation more than flying could soon find an answer with a machine that doles out a bright, shining answer: gold.

"The reaction by Asian people was fantastic," gold dealer Thomas Geissler told AFP after his company, TG Gold-Super-Markt, tested a prototype dubbed "Gold to Go" in the airport's main hall earlier in June.

"A guy was delighted to get a piece of gold to bring back to his wife."

Geissler hopes to have a working model up and running within three months in a shopping area beyond the x-ray machines where check-in stress evaporates and passengers can kick back.

AFP PHOTO / Sebastian Derungs
Switzerland, Mendrisio: 5 gram gold bars engraved with the logo and name of the German bank Commerbank at the plant of gold refiner and bar manufacturer Argor-Heraeus SA in Mendrisio, southern Switzerland

And he is aiming big: Geissler wants to install 500 machines in airports throughout Europe, as well as in train stations, jewelers and upscale stores in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland.

Germany, one of the countries worst hit by the global recession, is seen as a wise place to launch Geissler's machine because the economic crisis has driven up gold sales in Europe's biggest economy.

According to the World Gold Council, German investors -- and consumers over the border in Switzerland -- are hoarding gold at "levels not previously recorded".

In 2008, there was "a tremendous swing from trivial levels within Europe to very substantial levels" in gold sales, said Niel Neader, research director at GFMS, a London-based precious metals consultancy.

"In the closing months of the year, Germany was the star performer."

While the rest of the world worries about deflation, German economists, bankers and politicians are warning huge government deficits could quickly re-ignite inflation once a sustained economic recovery gets under way.

This worries Germans because hyperinflation and two world wars wiped out many families' savings in the 20th century, Geissler explained.

"Germans are frightened by inflation ... They are afraid to lose everything a third time in one century. Twice was enough."
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