“Chinese, Middle Eastern and Russian customers all share a love of the luxury accessory — whether handbags, fine jewelry or watches,” he said.
Jewelry demand in China, the world’s second-largest gold consumer, rose 6 percent in the second quarter of this year from a year earlier, against a 31 percent drop in India and a 9 percent decline in global demand for gold.
Barba said Chinese customers now rank among the five top-spending groups at Selfridges, regardless of the season.
CHAMPION SPENDERS
The trend is even more marked elsewhere.
Global Refund, which arranges sales tax refunds for tourists, reported a 164 percent rise in sales to Chinese customers on Bond Street in the first seven months of this year from a year ago. Spending by Russians fell 27 percent, although at £1,295, their average spending was still higher than the Chinese shoppers’ typical £972.
“In spite of the downturn, the growth in Chinese spending is a trend we expect to continue to the end of 2009,” Global Refund’s vice president of UK sales Nigel Dasler said. “Seventy percent of their tourism expenditure is on shopping.”
Similar figures from Premier Tax Free show sales for which it arranged tax rebates to Chinese shoppers soared to £3.9 million on Bond Street in the first seven months of this year from just under £1 million a year ago.
That outstripped the combined £3.1 million figure for visitors from the Gulf states of Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and eclipses other big spenders such as the US (£1.8 million) and Nigeria (£1.2 million).
Last year’s table-topper Russia dropped to £1.7 million from £1.9 million in the first seven months of last year.
The number of billionaires in Russia has shrunk by two-thirds over the last year after the downturn lopped more than 70 percent from the combined fortunes of the nation’s 100 richest people.
According to Travco, the fallout from the 2006 murder of Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko in a London hotel has been compounded by tighter visa requirements and Russian media coverage of Britain’s swine flu outbreak.
“Some of my [Russian] tour operator clients have been calling and saying ‘we know there is little risk from swine flu but our customers are all convinced that if they come here they’re going to die,’” sales manager Beau Manby said.
What is not certain is whether Chinese visitors will, regardless of exchange rates, keep coming back in the same way as other perennial big spenders.
Visiting London is an annual tradition for many wealthy Gulf Arabs, including Kuwaiti journalist Muhammed Khaled. Drinking coffee on Edgware Road close to many of London’s best known stores, he said he has been coming to Britain for the past decade to shop and escape the searing summer heat.
“I just have to come here every year,” he says. “Kuwaitis absolutely adore London.”
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