4. Amsterdam Athens Bangkok Beijing Beirut Bratislava Brussels Budapest Buenos Aires Casablanca Copenhagen
Düsseldorf Galway Geneva Gothenburg Guangzhou Helsinki Istanbul Larnaca Lisbon Ljubljana London Luxembourg Madrid
Milan Montevideo Moscow New York Osaka Oslo Paris Prague Reykjavik Riga São Paulo Seoul Shanghai Taipei Tokyo
St Petersburg Stockholm Sydney Tallinn Tokyo Warsaw Vienne Vilnius Zagreb Zurich
5. Globe shopper
Globe sho∙per – [glohb shop-er]
Noun: someone who considers shopping as a fundamental part of
their travel experience
6. Shopping is their priority when they travel
82%
48%
Russian tourists
Source: Global Blue Review.
56%
Mid-Eastern tourists
Chinese tourists
7. Globe shoppers spend 4 times more per high-street
transaction than the locals
Local client
Local client
Globe shopper
Local client
Local client
Source: Global Blue Analytics – Time period: since 1980.
8. CHF 54 billion
2012’s estimated size of the globe shopper market in the 37 countries
where VAT refunds are available to tourists today.
9. “Four years ago China was one third
of our American business. Now it’s four times
our American business.”
-- Michael Ward, MD, Harrods
10. 23,000,000
The Tax Free Shopping transactions completed by Global Blue
every year are the core of our intelligence service.
11. 31% up
In 2012, the total amount spent by globe shoppers was
up 31% year on year.
Source: Global Blue Analytics – Time period: calendar year 2012
12. Looking back on the spending of 2012’s top 5 nations
100%
80%
60%
Chinese
40%
Russians
Japanese
20%
Indonesians
0%
Americans
-20%
-40%
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
Source: Global Blue Analytics – Time periods: calendar years, in growth of total amount spent
2012
13. The main globe shopper nations in 2012
Chinese
25%
Others
47%
Russians
16%
Japanese
Americans Indonesians
5%
4%
4%
Source: Global Blue Analytics – Time period: calendar year 2012, in share of total spent.
14. The main destination countries in 2012
France
19%
30 others
25%
Italy
16%
Singapore
12%
Germany
13%
United Kingdom
15%
Source: Global Blue Analytics – Time period: calendar year 2012, in share of total spent.
15. The main product categories in 2012
15 others
14%
Electronics
3%
Leather & accessories
9%
Fashion & clothing
49%
Watches & jewellery
20%
Source: Global Blue Analytics – Time period: calendar year 2012, in share of total spent.
16. Globe shopping in 2012
Top 10 findings of The Global Blue Review 2012
17.
18. We review the performance of globe shoppers from:
1. China
6. Thailand
2. Russia
7. Brazil
3. Japan
8. Taiwan
4. Indonesia
9. Switzerland
5. USA
10. Malaysia
19. (1)
4 nations, 50% of tax free sales
Globe shoppers from China, Russia, Brazil, and Indonesia, now account for
as much as half the tourist turnover of most retailers across Europe.
Source: Global Blue Analytics – Time period: calendar year 2012
20. (2)
Chinese spend grew by 58%
Following a doubling between 2011 and 2009.
Source: Global Blue Analytics – Time period: calendar year 2012
23. (4)
+394% Chinese travellers
In 10 years, Chinese outbound travel grew by 394%, and is expected to
grow by another 144% by 2020.
Source: China National Tourism Association
24. Top outbound destinations of the Chinese
Others
21%
France
23%
Italy
12%
Germany
17%
UK
12%
Singapore
15%
Source: Global Blue Analytics – Time period: calendar year 2012
25. (5)
Russians come second
With 31% growth in total spent and 16% global market share, Russians are
the second most important globe shopper nation.
Source: Global Blue Analytics – Time period: calendar year 2012
26. (6)
Russians LOVE fashion
Russians have a passion for Fashion and Italy is the preferred tax free
shopping destination, capturing 26% of their total spent on shopping.
Source: Global Blue Analytics – Time period: calendar year 2012
27. Russians’ number of transactions by category
Fashion & clothing
Leather & accessories
Watches & jewellery
2,946,485
271,744
136,155
15 others
Source: Global Blue Analytics – Time period: calendar year 2012
2,033,477
28. (7)
Chinese deal vs. Russian exclusivity
Although they are both attracted by big brand names, Chinese want a good
deal while Russians look for exclusivity.
29. (8)
Thai spend grew by 52%
Thai globe shoppers spend more and more and reached the
sixth position in 2012.
Source: Global Blue Analytics – Time period: calendar year 2012
30. (9)
th
Indonesia ranks 4
Indonesia is the fourth largest globe shopper nation, and 90% of their
shopping happens in Singapore.
Source: Global Blue Analytics – Time period: calendar year 2012
31. (10)
USA is still in the picture
Tax Free shopping by US citizens in 2012 grew by 23%.
Source: Global Blue Analytics – Time period: calendar year 2012
32. Growth of the top 10 nations by amount spent in 2012
58%
52%
39%
38%
31%
31%
28%
23%
17%
14%
-1%
Source: Global Blue Analytics – Time period: calendar year 2012, in y-o-y growth of total spent.
33. Growth of the top 10 nations by amount spent in 2012
58%
52%
39%
38%
31%
31%
28%
23%
17%
14%
-1%
Source: Global Blue Analytics – Time period: calendar year 2012, in y-o-y growth of total spent.
34. Looking ahead at 2013 (Jan-Aug vs. last year)…
34%
24%
15%
13%
10%
10%
13%
8%
2%
-6%
-30%
Source: Global Blue Analytics – Time period: Jan-Aug 2013 vs. Jan-Aug 2012, in growth of total spent.
35. Looking ahead at 2013 (Jan-Aug vs. last year)…
34%
24%
15%
13%
10%
10%
13%
8%
2%
-6%
-30%
Source: Global Blue Analytics – Time period: Jan-Aug 2013 vs. Jan-Aug 2012, in growth of total spent.
We publish the Global Blue Review every year, and we want it to be the key for the retail industry in major shopping destinations to understand globe shoppers.Each section of the report is about one major globe shopper nation, and includes:Spend on tax free shopping, which countries globe shoppers spend in, what categories of goods they spend onTechnology: smartphone and internet penetration, overall use of technology while travelling and shopping, etc.Tourist expenditure: what each nation spends in total travelling and on whatWhere they visit: where do people from each globe shopper nation visit, in what numbers, and whenHow they book and research their tripPopulation and demographics, with facts and projectionsTraveller groups and segmentationEconomy, with future projections, present and past figuresVisa and currency issues, which are the main impediments to international travel and spending
So what were the top 10 globe shopper nations by amount spent on tax free shopping in2012?They were tourists from China, Russia, etc…You will receive a copy of the Global Blue Review after my presentation; it is pretty extensive document, and I don’t mean to take you though everything.So I propose to simply go through the 10 most important things that happened in 2012, and then let you discover the rest at your convenience.
The first thing we realized when putting together the report was that 50% of all tax free sales in the world were generated by only 4 of the globe shopper nations in the 260 passports and nationalities that we capture.Consider this: globe shoppers from China, Russia, Brazil, and Indonesia, just four of the ten nations, now account for as much as half the turnover of many retailers across Europe.The luxury industry in general is used to say that 50% of all luxury goods in the world are sold in relation to travel, but now we can add that half of this business is generated by only 4 nationalities of tourists.Of course, and we showed earlier, most of this business is generated by Chinese globe shoppers.>> CLICK
And even if their spending volumes have been impressive for some years now,in 2012 they impressed us by the 58% growth they posted on their tax free shopping spend compared to the year before,which was just following a doubling between 2011 and 2009.
So 2012 again confirmed that China is by far the world’s number one globe shopper nation, in terms of volumes, in terms of average spending amongst the major tourist nationalities, and in terms of growth by amount spent. And we believe that - even if this is more than “just a beginning” - China has not yet deployed its full potential. Let’s look as some of the prospects that we and other companies see for China.>> CLICK
If you consider that MasterCard conservatively estimates that there will be 100m “middle-class” households by 2016 in China, this means that more and more people will be able to afford overseas travel.Now couple this with the fact that we know 82% of Chinese outbound travellers say shopping is their priority at destination and you have a good idea of the impact on their tax free spend that such a statement implies.
When it comes to the Chinese, there has never been a tourism boom of comparable scale. Outbound tourists from China rose from 16.6m in 2002 to 70.3m in 2011, and 82m in 2012, up 17%.The numbers are expected to rise to an extraordinary 200m by 2020, and destination countries need to be ready to absorb that many extra tourists.We have also never seen such a perfect globe shopper nation culturally speaking: one Chinese is worth at least three shoppers, as they buy for themselves of course, but they also buy for others and have a strong gifting culture.
What are the destination countries that will, in our opinion, benefit most from this boom?We believe that the picture will not be radically different from what we have observed in 2012, with France leading the way, followed by Germany, Singapore, UK and Italy.This being said, UK might rank much higher in terms of tourist shopping in the future, once they have adjusted their visa policy.But Chinese are not the only globe shopper nation that stood out in 2012. So what else did we see?>> CLICK
We saw that Russians did come second after the Chinese, with a strong 16% market share by total amount spent.Russian globe shoppers also posted solid growth in 2012 with 31% and confirmed that they are, for a retail business, a very high priority.We also saw that Russians did a lot more transactions than the Chinese to reach a same total spent, meaning that they spend less per transaction. In other words they spend less per purchase but they purchase more often during their trip.
This lower average spending and higher number of transactions by Russians is also due to the fact that Russians prefer fashion & clothing over watches & jewellery,spending 26% of their shopping budget on fashion items which have a lower individual price tag than watches of course.Chinese are different and spend more on watches, which raises their average spending and means it takes less transactions to them to overspend the Russians in total.
Let’s look at the total number of transactions that Russian globe shoppers did in 2012, split by product category.On a total of roughly 5.3 million tax free shopping transactions completed by Russians last year, half of them were on fashion & clothing, and only 122,000 on watches & jewellery. The rest was split into the 17 other categories that we track as standard.
What is funny when you compare Russians with Chinese globe shoppers, is that although they spend a lot on tax free shopping and do it more and more, they have a fundamentally different approach to shopping.We have see that they each go for their own category of products, but they also purchase in a different way. Chinese are primarily looking for a good deal – and mostly that’s why they come to Europe for luxury shopping. Europe looks like a gigantic outlet to them, with prices up to 50% lower than in China.Russians are more in search for exclusivity, and the price tag is not that important to them. They want what others don’t have back in Russia, no matter the cost. We all know the joke about these two Russian globe shoppers who sit at a café in Milan. One of them shows his new shoes to his friend and say he paid them 1,000 Euros. The other replies: “You should have told me, I could get them at 1,500 Euros”.
In 2012 we also observed an enormous 52% rise in Tax Free Shopping by Thai globe shoppers.Thais are now the sixth highest spenders on Tax Free Shopping, and it was amazing to see how they fast they made their way to the top 10. I remember a time not so long ago when everybody was betting on Brazilians to become the next phenomenon. But finally it is Thais who have silently but steadily made it, and there are signs that this might last. The long-term prospects are very positive, including the Thai economy booming and the strong baht.
In 2012 Indonesia also confirmed its importance by ranking as the 4th largest globe shopper nation, and what is really interesting to note about Indonesians is that practically al of their tax free shopping spend happens in Singapore.
Last but not least, one should not forget the Americans, who are still in the picture in terms of tax free shopping. Americans spend a lot on travel in general, as they are only second to Germany for overall spending on overseas tourism.But they do not shop like mad, sorry like Chinese when they travel. They privilege other activities at destination, like eco-tourism or cultural visits, which is also because unlike the Russians and the Chinese they really have no shortage of retail and shopping opportunities at home.
As a conclusion and to give you an overall picture of the globe shopper market growth last year, let me finish on these slides.You can see that Chinese have been growing the fastest, closely followed by the Thais. The general tax free shopping market has been growing by 31%, and the only nations in the top 10 by total amount spent that have been outperforming the market are China, Thailand, Malaysia and Japan.
And again, if you take just 4 of these globe shopper nations you get to 50% of all tax free sales.
Now the globe shopper market can be a fast changing environment, and the picture looks pretty different in the first half of 2013.While the market continues to grow at double-digit pace, and while the Thais have continued to post strong growth, you can see that all others have really “calmed down”, and amongst major nations only Thais, Russians and Chinese outperform the market.
This especially applies to Brazilians and Japanese. Although we still believe that the have an amazing potential that is just waiting to be unleashed, Brazilians are accentuating a downward trend that we have seen now for almost a year.On their side, the Japanese spending is heavily impacted by the government-engineered weakening of the yen and shows an impressive 27% down so far this year.