Despite Italy's low birth rate,
spending on Italian children is a three-billion-euro market,
according to Marina Salamon, president of research company Doxa,
which conducted a recent study of spending on Italian kids aged
3-13.
"In Italy fewer children are born, but they are more
pampered," Salamon said.
Spending on Italian children rose 7% last year, which is
seven times higher than the country's GDP growth (0.9%) and five
times higher than total household spending growth (1.2%).
The study looked at spending on children in seven categories:
cinema, books, TV, toys, stationery, parks and aquariums, and
newsstand.
"Higher spending in categories like cinema, books, and parks
show that there's increased attention on culture," Salamon said
while presenting the results of the study during the 3rd edition
of Kids Marketing Days in Milan on March 8-9.
The most striking result of the survey is in the cinema
category, which grew a full 34.7% in just one year to reach a
total of 287 million euros at the box office.
"A full 8 in 10 of the most-viewed films of last year were
films for children, adolescents and families, four of which were
animated films," said Fabrizio Savorani, senior advisor for Doxa
Kids.
"In 2015 there were only two animated films in the top 10,"
he said.
Theme parks and aquariums also had an impressive showing in
the study, up 12% on 2015 for 400 million euros in overall
spending.
Gardaland and its adjacent aquarium, Sea Life, were the
sector leaders, managed by British group Merlin Entertainment.
They took in about 116 million euros in 2016 and registered a
full 3 million visitors.
Mirabilandia came in second, managed by the Spanish group
Parques Reunidos, with just over two million visitors and 2016
ticket sales totaling over 35 million euros.
The children's books sector also grew, up 5.3% in value and
1.6% in volume for a total of 232 million euros.
Leading book sales was J.K. Rowling's eighth Harry Potter
installment "The Curse of the Heir".
Spending on toys, however, made up more than half of overall
spending on children ages 3-13, totaling nearly 1.6 billion in
2016, up 4.5% on 2015 spending.
Between January and October of last year alone - therefore
excluding the Christmas season - the sector grew a full 8.9%.
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