CHINA. CNSC was last night named ‘Duty Free Retailer with the Best Potential’ at the eighth annual Luxury in China Awards held by Yaok Group.
The membership-only Yaok Group, co-founded by Steven Yao and Tina Zhou, is China’s leading luxury network. The dinner also celebrated the organisation’s tenth anniversary.
Yaok (meaning VVIP in Chinese) refers to high net worth individuals (HNWIs) with net wealth of over US$1.5 million. China has the world’s largest Yaok population, according to Yaok’s sister organisation Fortune Character Institute.
Yaok’s Luxury in China Awards gala dinner drew an audience of over 200 people, comprising luxury brand executives, retailers, entrepreneurs and luxury consumers. The Moodie Davitt Report Chairman Martin Moodie presented the duty free retailer award on behalf of Yaok to CNSC Chairman Robert Lee.
Lee said that the accolade was great encouragement to CNSC to maintain its rapid development. CNSC has the full backing of the Chinese government to develop high-quality post-arrivals downtown duty free shops as well as extending its airport, land border and overseas duty free network he said. Maximising dometic consumption was a government priority and CNSC would play a key role in that.
Earlier in the evening Martin Moodie delivered an address on the global travel retail market and China’s particular importance within it. He said, “Everything in the modern day duty free and travel retail industry pivots around the Chinese. Talk to retailers all around the world today, and China (and the Chinese traveller) is front of mind.
“Dubai, Heathrow, Hong Kong, Seoul, Bangkok, Sydney, Paris, Frankfurt, Moscow. Name an airport, name a downtown duty free store, and even many leading department stores, and reaching the Chinese consumer is the number one priority. Many of the biggest duty free retail businesses in the world have become China-dominated businesses – it’s just that they are not located in China.”
Moodie spoke about the Chinese government’s rising determination to maximise domestic consumption through a series of far-sighted policies to encourage shopping at home. These included the creation of offshore duty free retailing in Hainan in 2011; the extension of arrivals and post-arrivals shopping; and the new e-commerce law introduced on 1 January, which is designed to curb daigou shopping overseas.
Moodie said that the future was particularly bright for Chinese travel retailers. “CDFG and CNSC will grow in influence, not just in China but also abroad,” he said.
“The Chinese government will continue to develop business-friendly and consumer-oriented policies to help encourage domestic consumption. Expect more expansion by CDFG; more CNSC stores downtown and at airports; more duty free shops on Hainan Island; perhaps eventually even more locations within China given similar status to Hainan,” Moodie predicted.
Footnote: Click here for an extensive report on CNSC and its growth ambitions. Look out for an update on CNSC’s growth plans soon in a major feature by The Moodie Davitt Report. We’ll also bring you the full list of the Yaok Luxury in China Awards winners.
