First European summit on shopping tourism kicks off in Madrid

The Shopping Tourism & Economy Summit, the first European Summit dedicated to the shopping tourism phenomenon, kicked off on Monday in Madrid.

The Summit aims at analyzing the economic impact and the possibilities of the shopping tourism in urban development and Madrid, the capital of Spain, is one of the main cities where this phenomenon takes place.

The capital of Spain is the fifth European city where non-European tourists spent the most after London, Paris, Barcelona and Istanbul.

At the summit, speakers will address topics such as how to promote shopping tourism in cities and how to boost collaboration between the public and private sector. Among the speakers are the president of the Spanish airline Iberia, Luis Gallego, and the Secretary General of the United Nations World Tourism Organization, Taleb Rifai.

In Spain, foreign tourists spent an average of 112 euros per day. The newspaper said that international tourists from some Asian countries can spend up to 1,000 euros per day.

"In 2012 Chinese visitors spent 157 million euros in shopping in Spain, as opposed to the 1.5 billion euros they spent in France. In the same year, Russian tourists spent around 900 million in Italy, as opposed to the 225 million spent in Spain," Expansion said, highlighting that Spain has still a long way to go before reaching these figures.

Spain is the third most visited country in the world after the United States and France and is the second country where tourists spend more money. According to the Ministry, in the first eight months of the year foreign tourists spent around 46.590 billion euros, 7 percent more than in the same period in 2014. (1 euro=1.12 U.S. dollars) Enditem