"Before I leave I have to get some bottles of Dolce&Gabbana perfume, a friend of my mother's asked me to. It's still a bit difficult to buy them in our country". The Chinese people's passion for Italian luxury items overcomes even old grudges. Thus, it may happen that some lady asks friends traveling to Italy to buy items that are not easy to find on Chinese e-commerce platforms. If 2023 was the year of the first return of tourists from the Asian country to Italy, after the long lockdown due to the pandemic, the first months of 2024 saw a real boom in Tax Free Shopping for all nationalities, thanks to the lowering from 155 euros to 70 euros of the threshold that allows tourists to get a VAT refund, decided by the Budget Law 2024. As a result, there has been an overall 42% increase in purchases by non-EU tourists between January and April, after a year already marked by a very strong rebound, + 119% compared to 2019. Protagonists of this comeback are regular customers of Italian luxury stores: in first place are Americans, followed by Arabs and Chinese. Despite the order of the ranking, operators look with great interest to Beijing, since, recalls the China 2024 Annual Report, "the Chinese one is a shopper that, in 2019, represented the first nationality for tax-free purchases in Italy and Europe". Indeed, if they ranked third in terms of volume of purchases, Chinese tourists in 2023 have already regained the podium of the receipt, with an average of 1,517 euros, compared to 1,234 for Americans and 1,080 for Arabs.
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