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.
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“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
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