Tourists’ interest in the city of Milan has grown. A confirmation that comes from Global Blue, a leading Tax Free Shopping company, and Lybra Tech, an Italian company that develops big data-based technology solutions for tourist destinations, businesses and hotels. In particular, Global Blue confirms that between August and October 2022 Milan is the city with the highest level of Tax Free spending in Italy (33 percent), thus surpassing the performance related to tax free shopping in the pre-pandemic, with a recovery rate of 110 percent.
The Milanese capital also beats other Italian cities in terms of the average receipt, which stands at 1,366 euros, confirming the highest value on the peninsula with a positive change (+17%) compared to 2019. Moreover, leading the city’s recovery are the downtown and fashion quadrilateral areas with a recovery rate of 112% and 110% respectively when compared to 2019. And it is precisely in the quadrilateral that 51 percent of total spending by tourists is recorded, with an average receipt of 2,121 euros. As far as incoming nationalities are concerned, compared to other favorite shopping destinations such as Rome, Florence and Venice, Milan enjoys a more diversified mix: tourists from the United States are the top foreign market in terms of tax-free spending (25%), followed by Arab countries (16%) and Southeast Asia (11%). Absent is Russia.
Global Blue’s study also provided a snapshot of a particular segment of new arrivals who chose Milan for their purchases and that includes the Gulf countries area. In detail, Arab tourists who shopped in Italy in the third quarter of 2022 concentrated almost half of their purchases right in Milan (47 percent), doubling their pre-pandemic spending levels to 197 percent, with an average receipt of 1,390 euros, up 26 percent from 2019. Purchases that 83% involve the Fashion & Clothing sector and 14% watches and jewelry. A further key insight into future prospects is provided by Lybra Tech, according to which demand from Arab tourists to the city of Milan has grown considerably during the last three months and, in particular, in the last few weeks. This trend is positive and proceeding at an average rate of 3.9 percent. There was also strong demand for bookings for the third weekend of December, while there was no evidence of particular interest for the Christmas holidays. Finally, from the standpoint of staying in the territory, Lybra Tech identified an average of about four nights for people from the Gulf areas, which is much higher than for all other nationalities.These are the highlights of the quarterly report “The Next,” the result of the recent partnership between Global Blue and Lybra Tech. The analysis is based on the alignment of two different data sources, one actual and the other forecast, which allows for the evaluation of Tax-Free Shopping (TFS) performance and comparison with the target market. Tourists, in fact, represent an invaluable pool for any business, but changing needs and sudden changes in market dynamics have made their understanding even more important to business strategy. It is this reason that led to the creation of The Next, which is a unique tool for making brands aware of and key players in the transformations of the increasingly rapidly evolving tourism market. All this is done to give companies in the sector the opportunity to plan data-driven business choices by reading and interpreting future tourism demand. Questions such as what will be the trend of the future, which areas of the city are most sought after, how can I best organize my store, along with many others, will now be answered.
