Written by: Deepti Chandak
Ouletcity Metzingen is a magnet for fashion lovers worldwide. Located in the small town of Metzingen in southern Germany, this City of Fashion attracts over 4 million visitors per year, with 380 brands in Metzingen & in the own Online Shop and in normal years around 185 nationalities visit the location. Truly a Fashion Paradise in Europe! From here I had an interview with Angela Rieger, Sales & Tourism Manager at Outletcity Metzingen. She talks about the reasons why Outletcity Metzingen is a great destination for visitors from the UAE and India.
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What’s the importance of the UAE, GCC and India Market to Outletcity?
International visitors are of great importance for the German economy in general. For Outletcity Metzingen, Europe’s largest outlet*, with its focus on premium and luxury brands, the international visitor plays a large role with regards to our worldwide popularity, cultural exchange and of course sales figures.
Many of the brands that you can find in Metzingen are highly valued in the GCC and India.
One example would be the brands Fendi and Prada, two very popular brands in the UAE. We work with these brands to create targeted campaigns in the market to attract visitors to come to Metzingen.
When international tourists visit Outletcity Metzingen as part of their trip to Germany, their budget for shopping is usually much higher than that of the average customer. The same applies to the visitors of the GCC who mainly visit Metzingen during the summer months.
Around 40% of the revenue generated at Outletcity Metzingen is generated by visitors of Non-European countries – a good indicator for Outletcity Metzingen’s international presence, which we have built up in the past years.
What can people find in Outletcity when travelling again post COVID?
With over 130 premium and luxury brands, Outletcity Metzingen is the largest outlet in Europe.* The range of brands includes fashion brands for both women and men, Kid’s fashion, and also Home & Living brands as well as Beauty & Accessories. Amongst the brands are famous names such as Gucci, Prada, Armani, Hugo Boss, Fendi, Tory Burch, Michael Kors, Moncler, Max Mara, Etro and many more. For a shopping break there are 8 restaurants which offer a broad variety of dishes for every taste.
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Getting to Outletcity Metzingen is also very easy. Stuttgart Airport is only a 20-minute drive from Metzingen and there is a Shopping Shuttle bus to take visitors directly to Outletcity. The international airports of Frankfurt, Munich and Zurich are also just two hours away.
Even though shopping is the main reason that visitors come to Metzingen, the region also boasts many other tourist attractions and is a popular destination for culture and nature lovers.
Stuttgart, the state capital just 30km from Metzingen, offers a broad range of cultural activities with museums such as the Mercedes-Benz and Porsche museums. The romantic university town of Tübingen is close by for those who like to discover small alleys, traditional German half-timbered houses and small cafés. A boat ride in the traditional “Stocherkahn”, a narrow punting boat completes a visit to Tübingen. “Burg Hohenzollern”, a real fairy-tale castle is regarded as one of the most picturesque landmarks of Southern Germany and only a 40-minute drive away. The sophisticated spa town of Baden-Baden has an international reputation as a destination for high-quality medical treatments. With 5-star hotels and a history of thermal spas dating back to Roman times, the town just 1,5 hours away is good for a longer stay.
Nature lovers will find Germany’s largest lake, Lake Constance, lined with picturesque port-towns and with the flower island “Mainau” 1,5 hours’ drive away, or the Black Forest - a paradise for hikers - just a one-hour drive from Metzingen. And for families and fans of roller-coasters, Europa Park, Europe’s largest amusement park, is a great place to visit that is just 2 hours away.
What was your experience during COVID lockdown?
Due to the legal situation in the state of Baden-Württemberg, the stores of Outletcity Metzingen are closed until March 7th.
Empirically, the loss of stationary sales is a very challenging situation for the Outletcity and the individual brands. This challenge must be overcome with teamwork. We hope to reopen our shops soon and of course with the appropriate health & safety measures to offer our customers a safe shopping experience.
Nevertheless, opportunities also arise from every crisis. New premium services such as digital queuing, virtual shopping or the even more intensive use of technologies in the stationary business, such as a store capacity counter, were accelerated in their implementation by the crisis. These services will continue to shape and develop the brick-and-mortar business even after the crisis.
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What Outlet city has to offer to UAE & GCC travelers?
Those who seek to attract international customers must heed the different cultural aspects and take care of the resulting needs.
A good example of this is the prayer room we invested in years ago in order to offer guests the opportunity to follow their religious rituals undisturbed and separated by gender.
Childcare has also been an important concern for us for a long time. When families decide to visit Metzingen, the little ones should also be looked after appropriately so that the parents can shop in a relaxed manner. The Kid’s Camp takes care of this.
To make sure international visitors get a good shopping experience, multilingual staff are available in all stores so customers from all over the world do not have any language barriers.
The website is also translated to all important source market languages, as this is often the first point of information for interested customers. Multilingual brochures about Outletcity Metzingen provide information on site and at our numerous cooperation partners.
In addition, our cooperation with Reisebank opens up convenient on-site tax-free processing for our NON-EU customers.
*By sales area or size - Market report “Outlet Centres in Europe”*, p. 25 (December 2020) produced by ecostra GmbH, www.ecostra.de/studien_und_marktberichte/outlet-centres-europe_2020-12.pdf
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