On 5 and 6 October, Madrid celebrated its 2015 Shopping Tourism & Economy Summit. It was the first European summit devoted exclusively to shopping tourism, recognising the phenomenon as one of the main drivers of urban economic development in the years to come due to its added value, its capacity to create jobs and bolster tourism activity, and its potential in terms of recovering large investments in infrastructure and technological innovation.
The summit acts to stimulate the shopping tourism sector in order to drive business, operating under a shared, global strategy that will benefit cities, the hotel industry, top brands, the commercial sector, gastronomy and large infrastructure (airports, motorways, high-speed transport, etc.), as well as technological firms via the creation of essential tools associated with information, management and methods of payment.
The aims of this international event, whose first edition was held in Spain, include becoming a shopping tourism forum par excellence and positioning its sponsors, the city of Madrid and “Marca España” as global leaders in this form of tourism.