Top Italian destinations for the global jet set: analysis by Global Blue

Capri but also Forte dei Marmi and Taormina to finish with Portofino and Porto Cervo. These are the five locations that will welcome more high-spending tourists, the "very high net worth individual" clientele, until the end of September. In the same locations, fashion and luxury brands are opening boutiques and temporary stores. A season that promises to be a record one also thanks to the media pull of Jeff Bezos' Venetian wedding.

Capri is confirmed as the queen of international tourism. The Gulf island registers the highest tourist demand, with a 74% share of high-spending foreign visitors and an expected average stay of more than four days. Guests from non-EU countries include the United States, which accounts for 31% of demand, followed by the United Kingdom with 7%. Capri is also the leader for summer Tax Free shopping, concentrating 36% of the volumes recorded in the seaside resorts between May and September last year. Again, the absolute protagonists are the Americans, who generated 54% of total volumes, with an average receipt of 1,727 euro. .

In second place were travellers from the Gulf countries (13%), with the highest average receipt: EUR 3,032. In three out of four cases, expenditure is linked to the fashion & clothing category. This is what emerges from the report The Next, produced by Global Blue and Lybra Tech highlighting trends, variations and opportunities in some of the country's most iconic locations by combining tourist forecasts between July and September 2025 by sounding out searches for stays made between March and June and integrating them with the tax-free shopping data for the summer of 2024.

At Forte dei Marmi about two thirds of tourist arrivals will be foreigners with an average stay of four days. The United States is the leading foreign market (21%) and also dominates in boutique purchases, with 30% of volumes between May and September 2024, followed by Arab tourists (24%). The average receipt stood at 1,842 euro, but in Versilia the real shopping heavyweights are Chinese visitors with an average expenditure of 4,557 euro per transaction. On the lowest step of the podium is Taormina, another much sought-after destination appreciated by US and British tourists.

Overall, foreign visitors accounted for about 70% of admissions and last year Taormina accounted for 9% of tax-free spending in the top summer resorts. Americans in particular generated 52% of the volume, with an average receipt of 1,610 euro. This time the big spenders were tourists from South-East Asia and the Gulf countries, with an average spend of over 1,700 euro. Taormina also confirmed itself as the destination of choice in terms of the distribution of spending between product categories: it is the only location among those analysed where watches and jewellery (47% of volumes) have a similar weight to fashion and clothing (48%).