Value Retail has nine Chic Outlet Shopping Villages in key European destinations: Barcelona, Brussels, Antwerp, Cologne, Dublin, Frankfurt, London, Ma
With nine luxury shopping villages in hot spot destinations around Europe, Chic Outlet Shopping offers the ideal add-on for your clients who love to shop.
ith shopping being something of a national obsession here in the Middle East, it’s probably no surprise to learn that travellers from this part of the world are just as determined to indulge in this favourite pastime when they’re abroad as they are when they’re at home.
Value Retail - which operates nine ‘Chic Outlet Shopping Villages’ around Europe - says its has received a thirty percent increase in Middle Eastern visitors in the first quarter of this year and it is now targeting a 52 percent increase by the end of the year.
Advertisement
The luxury European shopping villages are proving popular with Middle Eastern customers for a number of reasons.
Chic Outlet Shopping Villages offer luxury designer goods from top fashion and lifestyle brands such as Armani, Gucci, Givenchy, Dolce & Gabbana and Roberto Cavalli to name just a few, at discounts of up to 60 percent.
Not only that, but visitors from the Middle East are allowed to claim an additional tax free saving of up to 15 percent, making for some fairly phenomenal savings to be made on designer goods.
Shopping European Style
But according to Sally Beames, director, Marketing, PR and Tourism, Value Retail, the Chic Outlet Shopping experience is not only about grabbing a Gucci handbag at rock bottom prices.
It’s also about the entire ‘shopping experience’ itself, which she explains offers something completely different to the mega-mall concept found in the Middle East.
“Shopping is a way of life in the Middle East, but what’s interesting is how different the shopping experience is in our villages compared to the retail experience here,” says Beams. “We think that’s what’s endearing us to our Middle Eastern customers.”
One major draw is the style and architecture of villages themselves which feature elegant boutiques, cafes, and restaurants: “The scale of the villages is very small in comparison to a Middle Eastern mall. They are built for a European vernacular and are European in architecture.
Each village has its own identity, reflecting the locale it resides in. And the shopping experience is outdoors so in every way it’s a quintessentially European experience,” she adds.
Another bonus is that each village is strategically located close to major European tourist hot spots approximately one hour away from the destination cities of Barcelona, Brussels, Antwerp, Cologne, Dublin, Frankfurt, London, Madrid, Munich and Paris.
“The locations in Europe are chosen in very interesting areas where people can combine shopping with culture, shopping with sightseeing, shopping with spa, shopping with food or shopping with a children’s activity such as Disney Land Paris,” explains Beams.
Search our database of more than 2,700 industry companies
