Foreign Travelers Return the Favor
June 8, 2009 | Uncategorized
I was just setting out to pick up another 400 lb. bag of dog food when “The International Shopping Traveler Study” hit my desk with a thud.
“Honey,” I called out, “scratch Costco — this looks really interesting.”
It was an interesting read. But since perusing someone else’s buying habits is a bit voyeuristic, I’ll condense it here so you won’t feel like some perv at the mall.
Underwritten by shopping center developer Taubman, Shop American Alliance and the US Department of Commerce, it shows how the five largest inbound travel groups — Canadians, Germans, Japanese, Mexican and the Brits — spend their money in the USA. Since I’ve dropped wads of euros, pesos and God-only-knows what else in their shops over the years, I welcomed the opportunity to see if they were returning the favor.
First of all, according to the survey shopping is one of the key things that lures travelers to the US. In fact, foreign tourists spend nearly $40 billion in our shops and malls every year. So next time you see some Japanese or Mexican tourists on the street stop and thank them since they spend more than anyone else.
Most of the shoppers surveyed were either married or living with a significant other, although 1% said they’d rather not say. Our astute surveyors, on the other hand, were able to determine that everyone was either male (53%) or female (47%).
It’s evident from the survey that there is a great lack of clothing beyond our borders since most of these people come here to buy clothes. I suspect this is also the reason for all those nude and topless beaches in Europe. After clothes they spend their remaining money on footwear, food/candy, souvenirs, fashion accessories and cosmetics, in that order.
They’re also totally self-centered since the bulk of their purchases are only for themselves with Germans favoring Levi’s and Nike, and Japanese snatching up Coach, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Chanel and Prada by the planeload.
Together they spend one-third of their time shopping. The remaining two-thirds is split between eating, sleeping and listening to “if we go to one more mall I’m going to kill you!”
Jim Ferri
