The current situation of Barcelona as a Shopping Destination

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to analyze the current situation of the shopping tourism in Barcelona by examining how the city is promoting the product of shopping as well as identifying the profile of tourists and their favorite commercial areas. In addition, an analysis of the positioning of Barcelona as a shopping destination was carried out as well as an identification of the benefits resulting from it. Afterwards, some recommendations and future trends were pointed out in order to continue improving in the list of the most popular shopping destinations.

Shopping Tourism has greatly increased during the last few years. Although for many years shopping has been considered secondary when travelling, nowadays for millions of tourists it is the main or one of the principal reasons for choosing a destination. Consequently, the top tourism destinations such as Barcelona are currently allocating many resources to adapting and positioning themselves to receive this new type of tourism, meet their needs and reach their expectations.

To developed the fieldwork and, thus, obtain useful information, two qualitative techniques were used. First of all, 10 in-depth interviews with open-ended questions to 10 different professionals within the retail and tourism industry were carried out. Then, extra information was gathered in order to complement and contrast the results of the interviews. Once analyzed the data collected, it was shown that Barcelona is more than ready to receive shopping tourists. This is mainly because although it has not such a complete commercial offer as other cities, it is much more highly considered in terms of the factors that accompany the shopping experience. In addition to that, it was detected that the profile of tourist that shopping tourism brings to the city is very beneficial as it is cultural, it stays three times more than any other kind of tourists and it has also a higher purchasing power, spending average and level of repetition.