90% of Italians will spend this Christmas at home with their families and 75% will choose products made in Italy, reports La Stampa.
Many would not dream of offering foreign products during their Christmas meals and in this respect Italians are more “patriotic” than consumers in other European countries, where only 59% are as loyal to their own country’s products. Few Italians are prepared to pay exorbitant prices for out of season foods so the Italian food consumed on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day is traditional and regional which, says the farming union Coldiretti, enables consumers to save money as well as to rediscover the tastes of the past.
When it comes to those Christmas and New Year toasts spumante is much more popular than champagne and 140 million bottles are expected to be consumed in Italy and abroad this Christmas. 98% of all wines and spirits consumed in Italy over Christmas will be made in Italy.
It is estimated that each family will spend 225 euros on Christmas food and expenditure on Christmas as a whole is up by 0.6% as compared with 2008. Confcommercio found that 19.6% of Italians spend less than 100 euros on presents, 48% spend 100 – 300 euros, 85% spend 500 – 1000 euros and only 3% of those interviewed said that they would spend more than 1000 euros. Those who stated that they would spend less than the average of 300 euros were predominantly women aged 25 – 44 from Central and Southern Italy whilst those intending to spend over 1000 euros were mostly men in the 18 – 24 and over 54 age groups. Only 2.8% of the sample intended to buy on credit.
Interestingly the Deloitte Xmas Survey 2009 found that 28% of Italians surf the internet to compare prices,16% to find and choose products and 11% to find a local store selling the desired products. Only 14% actually make their purchases online.
Will you spend more or less this Christmas?
Is buying products from your own country a priority?
