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发帖数: 4776 | 1 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/business/global/american-bran
Over five days in January, a group of visitors to New York was treated to a
private concert with the pianist Lang Lang at the Montblanc store, cocktails
and a fashion show attended by the designers Oscar de la Renta and Diane
Von Furstenberg, and a tour of Estée Lauder’s original office.
The pianist Lang Lang in a Mont Blanc catalog, which is available in
Mandarin and Cantonese.
They were not celebrities. They were not government officials. They were
Chinese tourists with a lot of money.
Though luxury brands started opening stores in Beijing and Shanghai years
ago, Chinese shoppers still spend more on luxury products abroad than they
do at home, according to the consulting firm Frost & Sullivan. Price is the
major reason: Because of China’s taxes, luxury products are about a third
cheaper in the United States and elsewhere.
European luxury stores have been catering to Chinese tourists for years. Now
high-end retailers in the United States are pulling out their Mandarin
phrase books and trying to convince Chinese visitors that Americans can do
luxury, too.
“What started as a trickle has now become a flow,” said the vice president
of the antiques store Macklowe Gallery, Ben Macklowe, who recently sold a
Tiffany lamp that cost in the low six figures to a Shanghai visitor. “There
’s been prosperity across so much of Asia that you’re starting to see it
much more in the profile of the tourist on Madison Avenue.”
A record number of Chinese visited the United States last year — nearly 1.1
million — and the country accounts for one of the top-growing tourist
groups here, according to the Commerce Department. The number of visitors is
expected to almost double by 2014, according to the U.S. Travel Association
. Chinese visitors spend about $6,000 each on every visit here, versus the $
4,000 that visitors from other countries spend on average, the association
says, and their top activity is shopping.
Although some tourists spend money on Disney trinkets and at the outlet
malls they have traditionally frequented, luxury brand purchases are surging
in part because American stores carry a broader range of products than
their counterparts in China, said Julia Zhu, consulting director for Frost &
Sullivan.
Tiffany, which made almost a quarter of its United States revenue last year
from foreign tourists, has added Mandarin-speaking sales staff to its major
stores, as has Burberry, where more than half of sales at its flagship
stores are to tourists. Representatives from Tourneau’s Manhattan office
recently accompanied New York City officials on a visit to China to
encourage more tourism in the city.
At its United States stores, Montblanc sells Year of the Dragon pens and has
staff members who speak Mandarin and Cantonese. It is also printing Chinese
-language brochures about its products and selling wallets sized for Chinese
currency.
Despite having more than 100 stores in China, Montblanc is going after
Chinese shoppers on vacation abroad. “Yes, we are in the major cities, but
when you travel, you’re in the mood to enjoy and experience the moment,”
said Jan-Patrick Schmitz, chief executive of Montblanc North America. “We
certainly will do more and more marketing toward them.”
Retailers in the United States lag behind other countries. Part of that is
because of visa issues; it is easier for Chinese residents to get visas to
Europe. High-end American retailers like Saks Fifth Avenue and Bloomingdale
’s are urging the government to speed up the process here. President Obama
said in January that he planned to increase visa-processing capacity from
emerging markets like China and Brazil by 40 percent this year.
The American stores also have to overcome an idea that luxury can come only
from the old world.
“The European brands, they see prestige, history, heritage,” said Sunny
Wong, group managing director of Trinity, a company that owns and operates
high-end European retail brands in China. American brands, by contrast, are
seen as “contemporary, lifestyle” rather than pure luxury, he said.
American retailers are racing to prove Mr. Wong wrong.
Bergdorf Goodman in January held a private runway show at its Fifth Avenue
store for a group of Chinese tourists, followed by a meet-and-mingle with
designers like Mr. De la Renta, Peter Som and Zac Posen. Then, with Bergdorf
’s fashion director looking on, Mandarin-speaking assistants helped the
Chinese customers shop throughout the store.
“There are lots of brands that are already very well-known in China, but
Bergdorf’s strongest footprint is in New York, so getting them to know that
brand when they come here is a very important goal for us,” said Chris
Noble, president of Affinity China, a luxury travel operator that organized
the event.
Affinity China also arranged a meeting with Aerin Lauder, a granddaughter of
Estée, and a tour of J. Mendel, the fur brand, with a designer and one of
the Mendels. “They took them backstage, and showed how materials are
selected and how the pieces come together, and showed them the craft,” Mr.
Noble said. “We’ve got a lot of interest in the craftsmanship behind the
luxury pieces. People like to be able to say, ‘I saw how this was made, I
met the designer.’ ”
Mr. Macklowe, the gallery executive, recently held a seminar with Champagne
and chocolate for Chinese tour operators.
“You have to tailor your message for the crowd, and for this crowd it was,
‘These are very exclusive things, these are very authentic things, these
are very high-end things that you can recommend to your clients without
reservation,’ ” he said. “We tried to give them a sense that what we do
only exists in one place on earth.” |
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