Handbag tourism goes ka-ching

The designation refers to the growing tendency of consumers to shape international travel plans around appealingly priced fashion products.

A new report from HSBC (brought to our attention by the FT’s Material World blog) says there are ‘increasing incentives to travel from an economic standpoint as purchasing power and currency fluctuations can play an important role as well as relative price positioning’.

It’s a phenomenon no doubt familiar to anyone who has ever clocked the hordes of tourists at Harrods snapping up handbags and designer pieces like they’re free cheese samples... or anyone who has ever blocked out a few hours of a trip to Florence to visit the Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella (it’s the church of soap!).

Accessories tourism is less about the authenticity of buying an item from its material home than cold, hard savings. For many Asian and South American travellers, buying luxury goods in Europe or the US eliminates a tax and import burden that can double or triple prices.

As conclusive proof that the category has crossed over from observed quirk to compelling economic fact, HSBC says that as much as 50% of all luxury goods sales in Western Europe come from foreign wallets.

That shopping trip to Paris just became part of a global economic trend. Makes it sound much more respectable, no?

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