Salone del Mobile, Milan awaits the return of non-EU tourists

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While work is already underway in the pavilions of Fiera Milano in Rho to set up the stands for the Salone del Mobile (scheduled for 18 to 23 April), the Lombard capital is also starting to prepare to welcome hundreds of thousands of visitors from all over the world, with the palpable hope that this year the numbers will approach those of 2019, record years of visits to the fair and in the city.

The data made available by «The Next» (a report produced by Global Blue, specialized in the Tax Free Shopping sector, together with Lybra Tech, which develops technological solutions for the tourism sector) offer Milanese tourism and trade operators a decidedly positive picture. The Russians will still be missing, it’s true, and the Chinese will certainly be fewer than in the Design Weeks of the pre-Covid era, but expectations are positive. «In these three years the situation has changed radically – explains Stefano Rizzi, managing director of Global Blue Italy -. In 2019, the first two nationalities present in Milan during the week of the Salone were the Chinese and the Russians, who together accounted for 50% of tax-free shopping in the city, with 41% and 9% respectively of spending».

The new geography of shopping

Two nationalities that have completely disappeared in the last three years, including 2022 which, overall, has in any case recorded a recovery of 90-95% compared to the levels of tax-free shopping (therefore made by customers from countries outside the Euro area), thanks to the contribution fundamental of Americans, Brazilians, Emiratis, but also British. «This year we probably won’t have as many tourists arriving from Arab countries, because the dates of the Salone del Mobile coincide with those of Ramadan, but we still expect many Americans and a return of the Chinese», adds Rizzi. Suffice it to say that in the last two weeks the spending of Chinese visitors in the city has reached around 50% of the volumes of 2019: it is difficult to think that this positive trend will not be confirmed also in the days of the Design Week.

United States main Country of arrival

Furthermore, Lybra Tech analyzes reveal a 14% growth in travel and accommodation searches made between the beginning of November and the end of February for the stay in April, with 80% of the demand from foreigners, mainly arriving from the United States , followed by the United Kingdom and Brazil. The most sought-after day is April 18, the opening day of the salon.

“In this post-pandemic context, in which the map of origins at the Salone del Mobile has changed so much, knowing the origins of visitors is essential for the organizers, in order to be able to organize the reception and the offer in the most appropriate way”, he observes Rizzi.