In May, Johann Rupert, the straight-talking South African chairman and chief executive of Switzerland-based Richemont, the world’s second-largest luxury goods group, provided an insight into the European luxury houses’ complex relationship with China.
He told investors on a conference call: “A few years ago, I said: if people do not watch it, Europe will become an open-air museum for travelling Chinese. Well, we are halfway there.”
There will probably be few at the 2012 FT Business of Luxury Summit. in Marrakech, Morocco, this week who do not recognise the importance of Chinese tourists to their industry. Analysts and luxury goods executives widely agree that Asian consumers accounted for half of the sales of luxury goods made in Europe last year.