Milan is confirmed as the Italian capital of shopping, but tourists are increasingly choosing the outlets. It is one of the data that emerges from the Shopping Tourism Italian Monitor 1029, presented in the Lombard capital by Risposte Turismo, in collaboration with Confcommercio. Shopping tourism is confirmed as a great reality in Italy, supported in the meantime by foreign travellers, who in 2018 they incurred spending on purchases in stores of approximately 7,3 billion, with 17,6% of their total spending going to shopping (+2,5%). In this context, once again Milan confirms itself at the forefront: in the fashion capital, tourists spend a quarter of their budget on shopping, and the city is in ninth place in the world in terms of variety of offers, friendliness and value for money. In the top 25 also two other big Italians: Rome is 17th, Florence 22nd.
But if it's true that tourist shopping is a phenomenon that greatly affects foreigners (the Chinese, Russians and Americans account for more than half of the purchases by themselves), it's also true that among the new developments there is also the boom, especially as regards the Italians (but also the foreigners), of the outlets. According to the data presented by Risposte Turismo, Italy is at the top in Europe for distribution and attendance of the outlets: 3 out of 4 Italians who travel for shopping still choose the famous shopping streets, i.e. shops in city centres, but those who opt for outlets rise to 57% (in addition to 42% who go to shopping centres). Looking at individual destinations, only Milan does better than the outlets: it is chosen by 31,2% of Italians, against 20% of the outlets that precede Florence (16,5%), Rome (14,1%) and Venice (4,1. XNUMX%).
“This happens – explains Francesco Di Cesare, president of Risposte Turismo – also because the shops in the shopping streets, even if they come together in associations, do not implement concrete strategies to network and above all they do little synergy with hotels and other tour operators“. A choice, that of the outlets, also facilitated by the great growth of this formula in the area, which also attracts foreign tourists through the famous organized "tours": to date there are 27 Italian outlets, almost all distributed in the Center and North, and their total area exceeded 700.000 m2000, starting practically from zero in 37. A trend that sees us at the top in Europe: only in the UK there are more of them than in Italy (2019), while both in terms of area and number and share on the market we are ahead of France, Germany and Spain. And in the first half of XNUMX, between new openings and extensions, we were second only to Russia in terms of development.
To these data must be added those of shopping centers, which in Italy in 2019 are almost 1.000 and 2023 new openings and 16 expansions are planned by 12. The survey then focuses on the commercial services of the cities of Milan, Florence and Venice, from which two interesting curiosities emerge. The first is internationalization: now in almost all stores (98% in Milan and Florence, 100% in Venice) the staff is fluent in english, and also more than half speak at least one other language, be it Spanish or French, but in some cases also Russian and Chinese. So, instead, the data on credit cards: the controversy over digital payments is raging in our country, and even the big shopping stores do not escape the fact that we are not very well prepared in this area. In fact, in Milan almost 70% of the shops accept all types of credit cards, but in Florence and Venice this figure drops to around half or slightly above.
