Retail Therapy

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.

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.

Selling Shopping Breaks
Value Retail is now on a major push to bring more shoppers from the Middle East to its villages and is looking to work with travel agents across the region to do this.

“We have been working towards the best way of adding value to the travel agent so that this can be a money-making opportunity for them too,” says Naz Musa, managing partner, Gulf Reps who is representing Value Retail in the Gulf.

The villages have created packages in conjunction with local hotels, attractions, tourist boards and transport handlers that travel agents can simply pre-sell to their clients.

“They are simple packages, spa and shopping, dinner and shopping. It gives the travel agent community in the region something to pre-sell and make a commission out of when all the airlines have cut commissions and hotels have cut commissions.

Its another ancilliary option to give something the client wants, pre-arranged, pre-sold and commissionable to the travel agent community for the first time ever this year,” says Musa.

In terms of the target customer, Beams describes this as anyone that is “used to spending money” – the average GCC shopper spends €300 per visit to Chic Outlet Shopping, She adds: “The typical customer is someone who knows Europe very well.

Possibly has a house there, definitely travels there over the summer, knows their brands very well, and appreciates the newness of the brands that are being offered to them,” said Beams Musa explains: “Our focus initially was the expatriate market, just because it was a quick win market for the UAE but very quickly it became apparent that the Arabic market was the lucrative shopping market, especially outside the UAE. They are the ones who specifically travel for shopping and they spend the most so they are our target audience.”

As for which villages are set to prove the biggest hits with Middle Eastern customers this year, Value Retail is predicting that the Spanish villages – Las Rozas in Madrid and La Roca in Barcelona are set to make an impact thanks to new direct flights routes opening up to those cities with Emirates and Qatar Airways.

“Spain is going to be interesting for us,” said Beams. “We are now able to focus on Spain more because we’ve got access to it.”

www.chicoutletshoppingtraveltrade.com

Top 5 shopping villages:

We pick the top Chic Outlet Shopping Villages to recommend to your clients

INGOLSTADT VILLAGE, GERMANY
SHOPPING STATS: Ingolstadt Village is 50 minutes north of central Munich in the heart of the German state of Bavaria. The shopping village has more than 60 luxury boutiques.

HOW TO SELL: Munich is one of the top tourist destinations with GCC visitors.

The destination has become so popular with Middle Eastern travellers that Ingolstat village along with many of the five-star hotels in Munich are working hard to cater to this demand by adding in prayer rooms, Arabic translation services and limousines to take customers directly from their hotels to the village.

KILDARE VILLAGE, IRELAND
SHOPPING STATS: One of the newest villages in the Value Retail group, Kiladare Village is an hour’s drive from Dublin and has 50 boutiques.

HOW TO SELL: Kildare is renowned the world over for horse breeding and the Irish National Stud. It is also home to the Curragh Racecourse where the prestigious Irish Derby sponsored by Dubai Duty Free takes place every year in June, so the area is attracting an increasing number of Middle East visitors.

A shuttle bus runs from Kildare Village to the Irish Stud so the two attractions can be easily combined in one trip.

LA ROZAS VILLAGE, SPAIN
SHOPPING STATS: Las Rozas village is 30 minutes from the centre of Madrid in Spain. It offers 100 luxury outlet boutiques.

HOW TO SELL: Emirates is to start its daily service to Madrid in August so La Rozas Village is expected to see a surge in popularity among Middle Eastern visitors this summer. A day at the village can be combined with a tapas lunch and a visit to San Lorenzo de El Esorial Monastery.

BICESTER VILLAGE, UK
SHOPPING STATS: The village is located just outside Oxford and is 60 minutes from London by train. There are 120 boutiques offering British brands such as Pringle and Mulberry.

HOW TO SELL: Bicester Village makes a great day out from London. You could combine shopping with a trip into Oxford, one of England’s most charming cities, and take in the historical spires.

LA VALLEE VILLAGE, FRANCE
SHOPPING STATS: The village is just 35 minutes from the centre of Paris and only five minutes from DisneyLand Paris. There are more than 95 luxury boutiques.

HOW TO SELL: Being so close to Disneyland Paris is a major draw. Many clients chose to stay an extra night at the theme park for a day shopping.

FAM TRIP FEEDBACK:
Tuan Azran Burah, Kanoo Travel joined a recent FAM trip to Las Rozas Village in Madrid and La Vallee Village in Paris. This is what he thought:

What did you think of the shopping villages?
The villages in Madrid and France are both located away from the busy cities. The villages offer a very unique feel to shopping for luxury brands with a very casual and comfortable atmosphere. They are clean, open and welcoming. To add to it all, the special offers and discounts were great!

Do you think the shopping villages will be popular with clients from this region?
Given that most families extend their stays in Europe for long periods, the Chic Shopping Villages and day tours to the countryside will be a popular add-on.

In Paris, the village is just five minutes from Disneyland, so the kids can enjoy Disney whilst the parents shop at the village. It couldn’t get better.

Apart from the international luxury brands, each village also features local designers. I guess this gives the visitor a taste of local design and fashion trends too. The local brands were surprisingly outstanding.

What was the highlight of the trip?
We were treated to a Flamenco performance in Madrid which was great, and of course visiting Disneyland and the Eiffel Tower in Paris. It was a superb itinerary, we were busy, but at the end of the day learnt quite a lot about the cities we visited and the shopping villages too.

MAKE COMMISSION NOW!
Chic Outlet Shopping has launched the first commissionable product for the travel industry which provides key partners with the ideal add on to European travel itineraries for group and FIT travellers.

The luxury Shopping Express shuttle service will operate from key city centres in partnership with some of the leading excursion/coach operators across Europe including Cityrama (France), Madrid Shopping Tour (Madrid), and JJ Kavanagh (Ireland) transporting customers to each of the nine Chic Outlet Shopping Villages. Tickets can be booked online.

Approved Travel Industry partners have the opportunity to benefit from net rates (up to 25 percent off with the exception of La Vallee Village which is capped at 10%) on ticket sales.

ATN asked representatives from Value Retail what was so appealing about their European shopping villages:

“Shopping is a way of life in the Middle East, but what’s interesting is noticing how different the shopping experience is in Europe compared to the retail experience here. We hope that’s what is endearing us to our Middle Eastern customers”
Sally Beams, director, Marketing, PR and Tourism, Value Retail

“I always present La Vallee Village as a relaxing shopping experience. In Paris we compete in a sense with the department stores, but customers also want another experience, and of course we have all the Disney Land hotels just five minutes away as people might come to Disney but extend their stay by a night to visit us too.”
Bernard Kouao, tourism manager, La Vallee Village

“We have seen over the last four years amazing increases in Middle Eastern visitors to Munich.All five-star hotels understand the demands of that clientele so we invited all the concierges from the hotels to brainstorm with them about how to cater to our Middle Eastern customers.

We came up with really important ideas like a prayer room in Ingelstat village, Arabian menus, translation services, and a limousine service that you can book directly into the village.”
Jens Riewenherm, marketing director, Germany, Value Retail