Manhattan Coddle Chinese Luxury Shoppers

choi

Stephanie Clifford, Luxury Stores Pull Out Mandarin Phrase Books to Make the Sale. New York Times, Apr 15, 2012 (front page).
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/1 ... inese-tourists.html

Quote:

"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.

"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 US 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.

"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.

"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.


Note:
(a) phrase book
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrase_book
(b) Diane Von Furstenberg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diane_Von_Furstenberg
(1946- ; a Belgian-American fashion designer; once the wife of Prince Egon of Fürstenberg [1946-2004; Germany; a fashion designer])
(c) About Tourneau
http://www.tourneau.com/catalog/ ... e=theTourneauLegacy
("1900: The legacy all began when the Tourneau family established a watch selling business in Western Europe.")  
(d) Bergdorf Goodman
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bergdorf_Goodman
(a luxury goods department store based on Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan; founded in 1899 by Herman Bergdorf and was later owned and managed by Edwin Goodman)
(e) Peter Som
http://www.petersom.com/

Neither his website nor Wikipedia says when and where he was born, though the latter states he "was raised in San Francisco by architect parents of Han Chinese ancestry * * * Now lives in Greenwich Village, New York City."
  
(f) Zac Posen
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zac_Posen
(1980- )

The Jewish (Ashkenazic) surname refers to someone from the city or province of Poznan in Poland (German Posen). See
Poznań
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pozna%C5%84
(section 1 Name)
(g) J Mendel
http://www.jmendel.com/