First Some Figures;
- Tax free shoppers spend 4 times more than other consumers
- 82% of Chinese travelers see shopping as preferred activity during travel
- Chinese tourists make up 29% of global luxury spending
- 1/3 of Russian travelers see shopping as a must while traveling
- 50% off all luxury goods are bought in connection with travel’ (Bernard Arnault LVMH)
For the brands in luxury segment and also for some specific locations sales to tourist may have a share of 50%. Cities such as London, Paris has always been the example shopping destinations for toursts but are we aware that Istanbul has become one of the top tourist destinations for shopping too? And do we have a clear plan to utilize this potential?
Lets identify our potential custoemr base;
Turkey is the only country that Chinese tourist don’t take a part in top 3. Visitors from Middle-East and Russia are the top sources of revenue.
Top 3 Sources of Tourism Revenue
Country
|
1st
|
2nd
|
3rd
|
Turkey
|
Iran
|
Saudi
Arabia
|
Kuwait
|
Germany
|
China
|
Switzerkand
|
Russia
|
UK
|
China
|
Kuwait
|
Saudi
Arabia
|
France
|
China
|
Egypt
|
Russia
|
Austria
|
China
|
Russia
|
Serbia
|
Italy
|
Russia
|
China
|
Egypt
|
Netherlands
|
China
|
Russia
|
Kuwait
|
Spain
|
China
|
Russia
|
Egypt
|
Below you can see the year to data fo tourism revenue shares by source countries. The trend shows that Middle –East visitors will be even more dominating the Turkish marketplace in the coming years.
2015 YTD
Sales Amount%
|
% Change vs 2014
|
|
Iran
|
14
|
45
|
Saudi Arabia
|
14
|
115
|
Kuwait
|
8
|
55
|
Azerbaijan
|
7
|
-6
|
China
|
6
|
177
|
Russia
|
6
|
-19
|
Qatar
|
4
|
105
|
Turkish
|
4
|
20
|
Egypt
|
2
|
19
|
UAE
|
2
|
77
|
Kazakhstan
|
2
|
-5
|
USA
|
2
|
69
|
Lebanon
|
2
|
83
|
Libyan
|
2
|
39
|
Germany
|
1
|
18
|
Rest
|
25
|
32
|
Total
|
40
|
Russian tourist flow has decreased by 40% and revenues has decreased by 20% for all countries, which is an important loss to all host countries.
What should we do to utilize
the Potential?
- Investigate & explore current tourist spend in the stores and the city
- Define target cities (store + nationalities)
- Identify Calendar (important dates for holidays)
- Work on partnerships with tax free suppliers
- Training staff
- Placing Multilingual staff in key locations
- Apply in-store signing + tools (tax-free etc)
- Directly target the tourist present in the focus city via local print and partnerships (hotels, transport etc.)
- Leverage tools via tax free partnership to create more awareness and drive traffic
