What do Chinese buy…?
Chinese beauty
In the last 5 years the considerable increase of the wages of the white collars in the cities has made possible to many Chinese to buy exclusive luxory fashion brands products such as bags, clothes and accessories. In shopping malls, airport duty-frees, taxi, even in restaurants!, there are videos running all day showing the latest creations of Gabbana, Gucci, Armani, Dior, Chanel, Ferragamo, Louis Vuitton… Young Chinese, influenced from these campaigns, want to dress the westerner style and are willing to pay the same price as in European shops. Also technology is a very good going sector. If Chinese are badly dressed they do not renounce to the mobile phone (手机), to the computer (电脑) or to a digital camera (数码相机).
Another sector in which Chinese start to be very interested in is the tourism industry. If 10 years ago only the Chinese elite could afford a Europe-travel, now a great number of Chinese can visit the places that the government never printed in school books: Siena, Florence, San Gimignano, Paris, London are put on show in videos running as entertainment in Chinese flight companies.
Even coffee has become a common drink among Chinese. Many coffee chains such as Starbucks or Costa have opened in Shanghai, Bejing and in the all tourist spots around China (I had one of the best coffee of my life in Yangshuo, a place among the hills of southern China). If wine is still an ignored drink, coffee has surely make its way into Chinese hearts. Bier is still not too loved (probably because Chinese do not like cold drinks). Bread is quickly appearing on many Chinese tables. Chinese like french bread and many stores have opened in Shanghai selling baguette. Gelato is not popular among Chinese, too cold. The few ice shops in Shanghai and Bejing are just opened for the expatriates.
What is surely going magnificiently good are cosmetic products with L’Oreal on the top of the list in terms of selling. Being obsessed with skin perfection and hair brightness, China is surely the Eldorado for the French company, which has doubled its revenues within a decade.
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China has a population of 1 milliard and 330 millions people and the buying power, together with the wages, is growing everyday. There will be a considerable increase of Chinese tourism in Europe in the coming two years with a considerable increase in the need of Chinese speaking staff at the hotel reception and tourist information centres. People who want to be competitive in the tourism industry should better train their staff in speaking Chinese.
