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China expansion for Jimmy Choo
Jimmy Choo founder Tamara Mellon hopes to open up to 50 stores in China over the next five years in what she dubbed an “exciting” market for high-end goods. China is the world’s fastest-growing market for luxury products and an ongoing economic boom is creating new billionaires every year in a huge explosion in wealth.
Jimmy Choo currently has just two shops in China “” one in Beijing and another in Shanghai. A third will open at the end of the year in the eastern city of Nanjing.
According to Mellon, China business has increased 100 percent in the last year on the existing locations we have. The British firm would open at least 30 stores in China by 2016. But the potential over the next five years could be up to 50.
Jimmy Choo has just 40 stores across the United States. As per Forbes magazine, this month that China had a total of 146 billionaires this year “” up 14 percent from 2010, and second only to the United States with 413. The brokerage firm CLSA said that China would account for 44% of worldwide sales of luxury goods by 2020 “” bigger than the entire global market is now.
Pampered pooch feasts on diamonds worth $10,000
We have all heard of the excuse “the dog ate my homework”. However, Chuck Roberts of John Ross Jewelers had an altogether different excuse; it was “the dog ate the diamonds” The now infamous dog Honey Bun swallowed $10,000 worth of diamonds. Roberts, who was busy with a customer inadvertently left 4 pouches of diamonds on the desk he was working on. When he returned back he found the contents of one pouch empty and Honey Bun sitting near by. His suspicions were confirmed with an x-ray of Honey Bun. After waiting a day for the diamonds to pass through the digestive tract of dear Honey Bun (gross), Roberts was able to recover the diamonds. The diamonds were immediately cleaned and sent back to the supplier.
Qatar gets crowned as the richest nation
Qatar is the richest nation in the world! Boasting of a gross domestic product per capita was $88,221 in 2010; the nation beat Luxembourg for bag the top honors. If current trends are considered, the country can hit the $111,963 mark by 2016, beating Luxembourg’s $94,621 and Singapore’s $70,992, by a comfortable margin, reports the IMF.
The country is the largest exporter of liquefied natural gas in the world that has reached the 77 million tons mark in terms of annual production. A Reuters’ poll predicts that Qatar’s real GDP will grow by 16.7 percent in 2011.The nation will also play host to the 2022 soccer World Cup.
China’s first gold vending machine
China introduces first gold vending machine in Beijing. Rated as the world’s second largest bullion consumer, China encourages shoppers to use cash or bank card for buying gold bars or coins of different weights. Launched by the Beijing Agricultural Commercial Bank and a gold trading company, many such machines will soon be seen at various locations to lure investors. We’ve already seen such gold vending machines at Abu Dhabi, Dubai, South Florida, Las Vegas and various locations in Europe too.
Booming China is number one Bordeaux importer
As per an industry body, the booming Chinese mainland is now the largest importer of Bordeaux by volume, driving a jump in exports of the French wine. Exports from the French winegrowing region rose 34 percent in value and 23 percent in volume between July 2010 and June 2011.
The boom was driven in part by iconic great estates, but the bulk came from little chateaux selling wines. Growth was most spectacular for China, excluding Hong Kong, as the mainland edged out Germany as Bordeaux’s largest importer in terms of volume with sales up 85 percent to 314,000 hectoliters.
Mainland China now buys some 10 percent of all exports from the Bordeaux region, estimated Georges Haushalter, president of the CIVB. Hong Kong which unlike the mainland has no import duty on wine “” remains the number one Bordeaux importer in terms of value, rising 71 percent to 90,000 hectoliters.
Bordeaux sales plunged during the economic crisis in 2008, with growth beginning to recover in 2010 as sales rose 14 percent in volume.
China’s rich are young, single and male
Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Australia were some of the countries which were focused. In China, the average age of that group of wealthy was just 36 and that 20% of them were single, equal with Australia as the highest percentage in the countries polled. In Hong Kong and Taiwan “” the other places in the “Greater China” region polled “” that percentage was just 12 percent and eight percent respectively.
The Chinese respondents were male, leading a spokesman for HSBC to quip that it was good news for anyone looking to hitch a ride with a wealthy potential spouse in China. But it is also a further insight perhaps into why the countries wealthy have become such a potent spending force in the global tourism and luxury markets, traditionally the places young and well-to-do males spend their cash.
China also had the highest proportion of DINKS “” or “double income no kids” “” at 18%, as compared to Taiwan where the figure was only two percent. The survey found that Indonesia had the second youngest collection of wealthy, with an average age of 38, in front of India where the age was 39. Hong Kong’s average, meanwhile, was 48. The world’s travel industry is increasingly targeting China’s wealthy as estimations have the country sending 79 million tourists overseas by 2015, which will make China the world’s largest outbound travel market.
A massive 72 percent of China’s international travelers now opt for “high end” travel experiences rather than budget alternatives, according to travel industry reports. The impact on local communities when they do travel is significant too. A recent report from the China Travel Association revealed that when on holidays not only is shopping the preferred pastime for Chinese tourists, it took up more than a quarter (27%) of their spending.
Events in Shanghai, Miami & Baku
Over in the Ukraine, the Deluxe Travel Market returns for the third time to Kiev, showcasing luxury travel options from all over the world the best travel companies in the Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus. And finally, we recommend Azerbaijan’s only fair dedicated to luxury hospitality, The LuxeTravel Show. Offering an exclusive environment for luxury travel brands to showcase their products to upscale leisure and corporate clientele within the Azerbaijan travel market.
Fractional Summit USA 2011
August 30-31 | Miami
Designed to stimulate the sharing of knowledge and fresh ideas regarding the global fractional retail market, Fractional Life is pleased to invite members to their inaugural USA 2011 Summit, to discuss the theme “building for the future’. The event has been devised to attract the brightest and most dynamic minds in the fractional real estate industry to help define “new rules’ and future opportunities within an ever-changing market landscape.
China International Luxury Property & Home Dcor Show
September 2-4 | Shanghai
Since 2006, CILPS has displayed global luxury properties and customised interior design, to high-net-worth individuals of the Asia-Pacific region. After five years’ development, CILPS is now China’s leading property show for the world’s most exclusive properties and interiors in a unique atmosphere of luxury and lifestyle. The invitation-only event is designed for luxury property buyers and investors and is managed by UB Group. The event has welcomed over 350 exhibitors from 40 countries in the past five years. (more…)
Who Tops the Social Media?
With Social Media pervading our lives like never before, we have had professional streams such as marketing and PR leap towards social media in a big way. In fact, if you are not part of social media, you are in danger of getting that precarious `Introvert label. Blog, tweet, youtube or still better, turn an expert in consulting for the fresher. Marketing campaigns and product launches depend as much on the digital media as traditional.
No doubt industry watchers have sat up to take notice. This year social media winners have been announced too, courtesy Style Coalition, ideeli and Lucky Magazine. The name of the awards Fashion 2.0 Social Media Awards. These awards are meant to recognize clever campaigns, and were given away at W Hotel at New York City. Bagging awards of this sort is no joke, as a panel of industry bigwigs, and 10,000 online users ringing in votes went on to choose the winners.
Land values set to increase across the globe
The straight line trend for international farmland values has remained positive, says the report from consultants Savills but most mainstream investors have yet to look at land although analysts believe this will change over the next few years. In the shorter term, it is expected that demand for agricultural investments from family offices, financial investors and also the sovereign wealth funds will increase. Also farmland will become more prominent as a sought after asset, as world farmland markets become increasingly accessible and new emerging markets open up, creating new opportunities.
The report also says that as concerns over food security become greater and the use of land for agriculture comes under pressure, the financial sector and some governments/sovereign wealth funds have now joined the increasing numbers of private investors who are now appraising the investment opportunities. Some have already invested in the sector. Their motives differ, the report says. For example, the financial investors seek long term risk adjusted returns and portfolio diversification, while governments and sovereign wealth funds are looking for surety of the long term supply of foodstuffs.
It points out that food consumption is expected to double by 2050, with both the world’s population forecast to grow by over 40% (an extra 2.7 billion people) and also an increase in the demand for higher protein diets as the emerging markets become wealthier. At the same time, production/supply is expected to shrink, with pressure from a wide range of factors including urbanisation, climate change, the demand for bio fuels and rising input costs. Although the recession has affected levels of growth in some countries, Savills expects the basic economics of supply and demand will continue to support farmland values globally.
Japan quake fuels Hong Kong home rental costs
Japan’s massive disaster has increased home rental prices in Hong Kong as foreign employees in the financial sector relocate to the city from Tokyo. The occupancy rate of rental homes has shot up since the quake, tsunami, and nuclear fallout occurred on Japan’s main island of Honshu, Yonhap news agency has reported. “We have been receiving more phone inquiries, especially from the financial sector, after the earthquake in Japan,” said Man Cheung, an agent at the Golden Stars Property in central Hong Kong.
In the Mid-Levels, one of the most popular residential areas among expatriates in Hong Kong, furnished new apartments, sized under 1,000 square feet, are easily rented out at prices from HK$20,000 (US$2,566) to HK$40,000 (US$5,129) per month. Furnished apartments in secondary areas, such as Causeway Bay and Fortress Hill, are priced at HK$30,000 to HK$40,000 (US$3,847 to US45,129) per month, and are already full, she said.
An official at a Hong Kong-based property investment firm expected the rental volume to rise further in the next few weeks. “Occupancy at two high-end furnished apartment complexes developed by Sun Hung Kai Properties in the central area climbed as much as 3 percentage points to 98 percent recently,” said the official, who asked not to be named.
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