花钱如流水 中国人把欧洲游变成跨国购物大狂欢

La Roca del Vallès was once little more than a sleepy Catalan village (pop. 7,000) surrounded by farmland, 35 minutes northeast of Barcelona. Now, that farmland is the home of outlet mall La Roca Village, a purpose-built simulation of a Catalan town, packed with high-end outlet stores.

拉罗卡德尔瓦列斯曾经只是加泰罗尼亚区一个慵懒的小村庄（居民7000人）.这里被农田环绕，距巴塞罗那35分钟路程。而如今，拉o罗卡购物中心的商场就坐落在这片农田上。这里特意模仿了加泰罗尼亚的小镇风格，开设了许多高档的名品打折商店。

Last year, La Roca Village attracted 3.3 million shoppers, mostly foreigners, which makes it the most visited tourist attraction in Barcelona—superseding even Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí’s epic and internationally famous Sagrada Familia cathedral.

去年，拉o罗卡购物中心吸引了330万顾客，其中大部分是外国人，使它成了巴塞罗那访问量最大的旅游景点——甚至超过了加泰罗尼亚著名建筑师安东尼奥o高迪的史诗之作——蜚声全球的圣家族大教堂（SagradaFamilia cathedral）。

Travelers have always shopped, for handicrafts, unfamiliar foods, or silly t-shirts. But in recent years, as citizens of BRICS nations and other developing countries have begun to travel, vacation shopping has changed. For many newbie travelers, buying brand-name goods has become a central point of tourism, a way to participate in developed world consumerism and show the folks back home they’ve indeed been abroad.

一般来说，游客都会购买手工艺品、异域风情的食品或是傻乎乎的T恤。不过最近几年，随着金砖四国和其他发展中国家刮起旅游风，度假购物的方式也在发生改变。购买名牌商品已经成为许多旅游新军旅行活动的重点。他们将此视为感受发达国家用户至上主义的途径，还可以向家里的亲朋好友展示：他们确实出过国了。

The boom has been most notable among Chinese travelers, who’ve celebrated their new ability to globetrot with sights-and-malls bus trips across the U.S. and shopping-heavy versions of the old Grand Tour of Europe. Next year, Chinese travelers are expected to buy more luxury goods abroad than tourists from all other countries combined.

这种血拼热情在中国游客身上体现得最为明显。他们为自己现在可以在美国的巴士之旅上看风景、逛商场，或是沿着古老的教育旅行路线环游欧洲疯狂购物而欢欣鼓舞。预计到明年，中国游客购买的奢侈品的价值将超过世界上其他所有国家游客的总和。不过购物旅游远不是中国独有的现象，西班牙——尤其是巴塞罗那——给人们上了一堂示范课，让人们知道来自发展中国家的游客怎样改变了旅游业的面貌。

But shopping tourism is far from a Chinese phenomenon, and Spain in general—and Barcelona in particular —offers an object lesson in how visitor flows from developing countries have changed the face of tourism.

根据联合国世界旅游组织（World Tourism Organization）的一份新报告，2012年，在旅游消费收入上，西班牙位居全球第二，欧洲以外的游客在这个国家消费了11亿美元。而在经济学人智库（Economist Intelligence Unit）和旅游购物退税公司环球蓝联（Global Blue）合作发布的欧洲城市消费指数排行中，马德里和巴塞罗那并列第二，仅次于伦敦。

Spain ranked second in the world in 2012 for revenue from tourism spending, according to a new report from the UN’s World Tourism Organization, with $1.1 billion spent on shopping in the country by visitors from outside the E.U. And Madrid and Barcelona were tied for second, behind London, in a shopping index ranking of European cities put together by the Economist Intelligence Unit and Global Blue, a tourism shopping tax refund company.

去年只有25万中国游客来到了西班牙，来自俄罗斯的游客却达到了160万，比2012年增加了31.6%。名品特卖商Value Retail是拉o罗卡购物中心的所有者，它还在欧洲其他地方拥有8座购物村。公司的西班牙运营部主任、出生于纽约的迈克尔o戈登伯格说：“因为这都是些非常全球化的品牌，也因为新兴市场正在崛起，有许多美妙的因素促成了我们的繁荣。为什么游客都到欧洲来度假呢？是为了看看文化和精致生活的发源地。他们想要像欧洲人一样生活。购买欧洲品牌，可以部分满足他们的这种愿望。”

While only 250,000 Chinese people visited Spain last year, 1.6 million Russians did, an increase of 31.6% over 2012.

当年，信孚银行（Bankers Trust）向Value Retail的第一座购物中心——英国的比斯特购物村（Bicester Village）投资的时候，戈登伯格还在这家银行的房地产投资部门工作。1996年，他27岁的时候加入了这家公司。

“Because brands are so global and because emerging markets are emerging, there are aspirational factors,” says Michael Goldenberg, the New York-born head of the Spanish operations of Value Retail, which owns the La Roca mall and eight others in Europe. “Why are they all coming to Europe on vacation? To see where culture and sophistication come from. And they want to live like Europeans. Part of that is fulfilled by buying brands.”

我们一边在购物中心的中央大街上漫步，一边听着瘦削的戈登伯格给我们讲解模仿加泰罗尼亚小镇风格的建筑细节。

Goldenberg was working in real estate investment banking at Bankers Trust when the firm invested in Value Retail’s first shopping village, Bicester Village in the U.K., and he joined the company in 1996, at age 27.

从政府风格的建筑环绕着的中央广场处，我们开始了参观之旅【一家罗意威（Loewe）的名品折扣店就坐落于市政大厅的一楼】。随后我们穿过了一个舒适的中产阶级社区，来到整洁的工厂区。街道以鹅卵石或铺路石铺就，屋顶盖满了瓦片，建筑的颜色近似于奶油色，而楼群之间的广场点缀着安东尼奥o高迪风格的雕塑。

As we walk down the central avenue of the mall, the lanky Goldenberg points out the architectural details that mimic small-town Catalonia.

这种建筑上带来的愉悦感让人能够感受到当地的文化氛围。对于将大量旅游时间花在购物中心里的游客而言，这一点也许至关重要。戈登伯格表示，这里的顾客有60%都是游客，他们平均在这里要待上四个小时。Value Retail旗下的其他购物中心也会吸取当地的文化。科茨沃尔德附近的英国购物中心就在牛津市外，模仿了英国东南部的小村庄风情。而另一个靠近意大利帕尔马的购物中心以威尔第歌剧为主题。

We start our tour in the central plaza surrounded by government-style buildings (a Loewe outlet sits on the ground floor of the town hall), then pass through a comfortable bourgeois neighborhood and into a very tidy version of a factory zone. The streets are covered in cobble or large paving stones, the roofs are tiled, the colors tend toward the creams, and the plazas between the blocks feature sculptures in the style of Antoni Gaudí.

戈登伯格告诉我：“我们想让这里变得舒适。这可是度假。人们完全放松下来的时候才会寻欢作乐。”

This architectural recreation offers the sensation of a local cultural experience, which may be key for visitors who are passing a sizable chunk of their vacation at the mall. Sixty percent of the shoppers are tourists and they spend an average of four hours here, Goldenberg says. Value Retail’s others malls also simulate the local culture: the English mall near the Cotsworlds, outside Oxford, mimics a village in southeastern England, while one near Parma, Italy is based on Verdi’s operas.

购物中心还设计了奢侈品培训项目，帮助发展中国家的游客轻松舒适地浏览高端品牌，避免他们在这些店铺面前感到不安。

“We try to democratize luxury,” Goldenberg tells me as we walk through the industrial section of the town. “Notice all the doors are open? At a luxury store on Passeig de Gracia [Barcelona’s equivalent of Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue], the doorman sort of looks you over before he opens the door.”

在小镇里的工业区漫步时，戈登伯格告诉我：“我们想让奢侈品变得平易近人。注意到了吗？所有的门都是开着的。而在巴塞罗那的格拉西亚大道上（等同于曼哈顿的第五大道），奢侈品店的迎宾员会在拉开门之前仔细打量你一番。”

Value Retail identifies major cities with sophisticated locals and plenty of tourists, and then builds a mall far enough outside of town so as not to compete with the brands’ full-price city stores. In Barcelona, the mall is 25 miles outside the city; in London, it’s 75 miles.

Value Retail认为，大城市有着世故的当地人和大量游客，于是把购物中心建在离市区足够远的地方，以免与各品牌在市内的全价店抢生意。在巴塞罗那，购物中心距市区25英里；在伦敦，这个距离是75英里。

When it opened, many expected La Roca Village to fail. It was in the middle of nowhere and outlets were an unproven concept. The first years were indeed slow; 270,000 people came during the six months it was open in 1998, less than 10% of the number that visited in 2013.

拉o罗卡购物村开业时，许多人认为它会垮掉。它位于偏僻的地区，而名品折扣店还是个没有被证明过的概念。第一年的发展确实很慢，1998年开业后，半年内只有27万游客来到这里，还不及2013年的十分之一。

But as outlets caught on in Europe and tourism in Barcelona boomed—7.6 million visitors stayed in the city last year, up from 2.5 million in 1993—so did the mall.

但随着名品折扣店开始在欧洲流行，以及巴塞罗那的旅游业开始蓬勃发展——1993年只接纳了250万游客，而去年游客数量已经达到760万——购物中心也开始欣欣向荣。

The portion of La Roca’s shoppers who are tourists increased from 38% in 2007 to 60% today, and in 2009, the mall launched a bus service from downtown Barcelona. It now offers ten 20-euro round trips a day. A just-opened 30 million euro expansion led to the addition of 40 new stores at the mall. A recent job fair offering 300 jobs at the center attracted 1,500 aspirants. And Chinese tourists are beginning to come en masse: Barcelona got about 150,000 Chinese visitors last year, Goldenberg says, and 100,000 of them came to La Roca Village.

游客在拉o罗卡购物中心全部顾客中所占的比例从2007年的38%上升到如今的60%。2009年，这个购物中心开始提供往返于巴塞罗那市中心的巴士服务。如今，这辆巴士收费20欧元，每日往返10趟。Value Retail最近又向这里投资了3,000万欧元，购物中心因此增加了40家崭新的门店。在最近的招聘会上，这里提供了300个岗位，吸引了1,500名求职者。中国的游客也开始蜂拥而来。戈登伯格表示，去年巴塞罗那总共接纳了15万中国游客，其中有10万造访了拉o罗卡购物中心。

Goldenberg would not break out the Spanish mall’s sales, but he said the combined revenues in all Value Retail malls was 1.9 billion euros in 2013.

戈登伯格不愿意透露西班牙购物中心的销售额，不过他表示，Value Retail的所有购物中心在2013年的总收入是19亿欧元。

The parent company is now taking its shopping experience to the developing nations that supply so many of its customers. In May, Value Retail opened its first mall in China, in Suzhou. In keeping with its tenets of local design and European aspirations, the architecture blends Chinese artisanship with a touch of Italian style.

如今，母公司Value Retail把它的购物体验带到了供应大量顾客的发展中国家。今年5月，Value Retail在中国苏州建立了第一家购物中心。秉持着兼具本土化设计与欧洲风情的原则，购物中心的建筑融合了中国工艺与意大利风情。