Consumer spend is highest in London and Paris
Published: 20 July, 2009
London and Paris are the places to be in Europe, as this is where consumers are parting with the most cash. These cities also have some of the highest prime rents in the world, shows the data taken from Experian and Jones Lang LaSalle’s European Retail Centre Rankings. Italy, Germany and Spain all have two cities each that make the top 10 of the European rankings with Moscow the only city in Central and Eastern Europe to break into the upper echelon.
Rome, in third place, edges Milan as the top Italian location, largely thanks to its importance as a tourist destination and the relative lack of competition to its downtown retail offer. In both cities, rents for super-prime units can often reach levels commonly found in London and Paris, although their general rental level is much lower.
The dominance of London on the UK retail landscape is evident, with Glasgow being the only other top 20 entrant from the British Isles. Despite preconceptions that the UK is an expensive occupier market, locations away from London have prime high street rental levels that are comparable to those elsewhere in Europe.
It is important to remember, however, that the UK retail rents currently appear lower than they normally would relative
to other European cities, because of the past year’s exchange rate fluctuations.
In Germany, while overall spend is highest in Berlin, rental levels are far higher in Munich and Frankfurt. This is due to strong occupier demand and a high quality mix of retailers, and for this reason Munich is considered to be the top retail location in Germany.
Retail locations from Central and Eastern Europe account for only 10 per cent of the top 50, demonstrating that despite a boom in retail development over the last few years, downtown areas still generally lack the quality and quantity of retail stock found in Western European cities.
Stockholm and Helsinki have comparatively lower rents than their peers in mainland Europe, due in part to historically weaker demand from international retailers (largely for logistical reasons) although this is now changing, notes
the report.
And there is little to separate many of the locations outside the top 25, with Warsaw (52nd) and St Petersburg (65th) for instance having a similar catchment spend to higher ranked cities such as Antwerp (50th) and Bordeaux (46th).
