As the new edition of Shopping Tourism Italian Monitor reveals, shopping is one of the main reasons for tourists to visit Florence, Milan, Rome, Turin and Venice.
There are 1.5 million tourists who choose to visit these Italian cities each year with their first motivation being shopping. They spend on average 110 euros per day, especially for clothing (60%), followed by accessories and leather goods (17.3%) and cosmetics and perfumes (3.6%).
Milan the Most Popular
In particular, Milan was the city with the largest share of tourists with shopping as their main travel motivation (15.4%). The capital of Lombardy is followed by Florence (6%) and Rome (3.8%). Venice (1.4%) and Turin (1.1%) had significantly lower shares.
Milan is traditionally the world’s largest shopping tourism destination. It received the largest number of citations (20.3%) among over 6,000 gathered (maximum 3 per respondent). New York is second with 17.4%, followed by Paris (16%) and London (14.2%).
For some it may be a surprise, but there has been a significant increase in online searches in Russia about the Milan fashion week. According to Yandex, the increase accounts for 64% - from 3301 in 2016 to 5122 in September 2017. Many more Russians are thus visiting Milan, perhaps also as a result of the recovery of the Russian economy and in particular the stabilization of the Russian rubble.
According to estimates from 2016, the annual shopping expenditure of tourists in the five cities analyzed was 1.6 billion euros. Out of this, 610 million euros were spent in Milano, 422 million in Rome, 281 million in Florence, 230 million in Venice and 67 million in Turin. The average daily expenditure in Milan is 121 euros, while in Rome (77.8 euros) and Florence (45.15 euros) it is significantly lower.
Some Topics Necessary to Be Addressed
Among the main topics to be addressed within the various events planned include ongoing initiatives, future strategies and development programs related to shopping tourism in Italy. It is important to improve the relationship between outlet villages and streets of the center. Moreover, the importance of “made in Italy” in shopping tourism and services useful to complement the shopping experience of tourists in Italy are also to be discussed.