Week In Review: May 6-10, 2013

In case you missed them the first time around, here are some of Jing Daily’s top posts for the week of May 6-10: A Critical Question For Luxury Brands: What Do Chinese Tourists Want? Unique travel experiences and VIP treatment are ways in which luxury companies are successfully catering to Chinese travelers.(China Luxury Network) Chinese tourists are on track to take more than 155 million overseas trips by 2020 and will make 1.7 million arrivals in the United States in 2013. With luxury brands like Hermès receiving as much as 30 percent of global sales from Chinese customers, it is no wonder that they are one of the most pursued customer segments by luxury brands and hospitality providers. But despite aggressive courting of Chinese travelers in key gateway cities around the world, few luxury providers actually understand what they want. Open To Interpretation: Sheraton Huzhou Hot Spring Resort By MAD Architects Ma Yansong’s Sheraton Huzhou Hot Spring Resort. Whether you see a giant horseshoe, slinky, or traditional Chinese arch bridge, the new Sheraton Huzhou Hot Spring Resort is hard to miss. The latest project from starchitect Ma Yansong’s Beijing firm MAD Architects is 100 meters high and 116 meters wide, covering an area of 75 acres. The 321 rooms include 40 suites, 37 villas, and presidential suites, each with a view of the fabled Lake Tai, China’s third largest freshwater body. The US$1.5 billion luxury resort, which boasts a 28-ton Persian jade rough in its lobby and a marina for guests arriving by yacht, is the first international five star hotel in Huzhou (湖州), a city in Eastern China two hours inland from Shanghai with a population of 2.5 million and known for its silk. Luxury Is Key In France-China Trade Relations French President François Hollande and Chinese President Xi Jinping sign a deal for China to make a large purchase of Airbus aircraft. (Chinanews.com) A Hong Kong speech on Monday by French Finance Minister Laurent Fabius marked the latest event in high-level visits by several French officials intended to strengthen trade relations between France and China. When French President François Hollande made his state visit to China in late April in order to forge deals that would contribute to equalizing France’s current $34 billion trade deficit with China, much media attention was given to the aviation and nuclear energy deals that weresigned with great fanfare. However, also highly important to trade between the two countries is France’s luxury industry, which comprises one of the European country’s top exports to China. China’s E-Commerce Landscape: Growing, Social, And Mobile China will soon become the world's largest e-commerce market. Surrounding Chinese internet giant Alibaba’s recent market-changing acquisition of an 18 percent stake in microblogging platform Weibo, many reports have been published providing a barrage of data about the present and future activity of China’s e-customers. Since China will become the world’s largest e-commerce market by as early as 2015, this market’s dynamics are of crucial importance for companies to understand. This Week In Digital Luxury Marketing: Mother’s Day Edition A roundup of new and ongoing digital campaigns in China with a Mother’s Day focus through May 9, 2013, featuring Coach, Ritz-Carlton, Guerlain, Sephora, and Chow Tai Fook.

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Week In Review: May 6-10, 2013