Global Refund Index July: Chinese spending races ahead

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The table below shows travel shopping trends for the ten major nationalities visiting the countries of the Global Refund system during July

The data is based on actual sales data recorded by 130,000 retail outlets in 28 countries, consisting of the EU plus South Korea, Singapore, Lebanon and Argentina. Each month we will be publishing data on the spending trends for travelling shoppers across these countries, under an exclusive partnership with Global Refund, the world's leading provider of tax refund services.

At the beginning of this year travel retailers had high hopes for Chinese travellers as the German and Chinese governments were in talks over easing tourist visa restrictions. Currently Chinese can only travel to three countries on a regular tourist visa and free entry to Germany would have had an effect on travel to the whole Schengen area within the EU. Negotiations were not concluded but nevertheless this has not slowed the huge increase in Chinese shopping spend, which is almost 50% higher than the 2001 level. Future easing of visa restrictions for Chinese visitors - other than businessmen or official visits - is expected to fuel the growth of spending further.

In contrast, for the previous part of this year Japanese tourist expenditure was fairly weak and approximately at the level of 1999. While July was better than July 2000 in terms of Japanese spend and it represents an upturn for the first time this year, it is still 15% below the level of 2001. This can be attributed to the ongoing recession in Japan and the changing profile of visitors, not just their numbers, with more elderly Japanese tourists rather than office ladies.

Global Refund said that in the other countries grouping, spending from several southeast Asian nationalities, notably from Indonesia and Thailand, continues to show growth. Russian travellers have been increasing their spend for the whole of this year up to July which was almost flat compared to 2001. One reason for this is the fact that Russians shop in dollars, a currency which has slightly lost its spending power compared to the euro. When it comes to US travel shopping, spending remains approximately at the 2000 level and 21% down on last year. Tour operators are offering large discounts for US travellers which, as in the case of Japanese, is affecting the "quality" of passengers from the retail standpoint. North American seat capacity is significantly lower with fewer flight choices, a factor which is likely to affect the US traveller segment for some time.

• For more information about the Global Refund service for retailers link to www.globalrefund.com