Luxury shopping in global travel retail research

29.05.2024 - 12:58 / traveldailynews.com / Vicky Karantzavelou

Recent m1nd-set research highlights young Asian Pacific males as key drivers in global travel retail’s luxury sector, significantly impacting shopping patterns and preferences across various luxury categories.

Males, younger shoppers, and Asia Pacific consumers emerge as the driving forces behind luxury shopping in global travel retail.

The research, published by Swiss-based research agency m1nd-set reveals that more than half of luxury shoppers (57%) are younger than 35 years old. Millennials make up 42% of luxury shoppers in travel retail, while Gen Zs account for 15% currently. According to the research, Gen Zs have started to purchase luxury goods much earlier than the Millennials. Among these younger Gen Z luxury shoppers in travel retail, men are more prone to purchase luxury goods in travel retail than women: 62% of luxury GTR shoppers are men and 38% are women.

According to m1nd-set, Asia Pacific travellers have the highest tendency to purchase luxury in travel retail. 47% shoppers from the region say they purchased luxury goods in travel retail on their last international trip. The Middle East & Africa is in second place with 40% of shoppers purchasing luxury goods. In Europe, 38% of travel retail shoppers say they purchase luxury goods, while in the Americas just over one third say they purchase luxury goods; 35% in North America and 34% in South America.

The research provides a category specific analysis of the luxury shopping trends also, demonstrating that luxury shoppers have a higher tendency to purchase all the main premium categories than non-luxury shoppers. Perfumes is the most popular category purchased with 42% of luxury shoppers, which is 4% higher than non-luxury shoppers. Fashion & Accessories follows with 38% purchasing the category 22% more than among non-luxury shoppers. Significant differences between luxury and non-luxury shoppers are also seen with the Skincare and Jewellery & Watches categories, where there is a 20% delta between the two customer segments: 34% vs 14% in Skincare and 25% vs 5% for Jewellery & Watches, 36% of luxury shoppers purchase Alcohol, which is 10% higher than other shoppers.

According to m1nd-set there is a distinctly greater desire and quest for differentiation and exclusivity in their travel retail purchases among the luxury shoppers compared to non-luxury shoppers. More than two thirds of luxury shoppers say they want to purchase something different than what they usually purchase, which is 16% more than among non-luxury shoppers. Other purchase driver criteria, where significant differences can be seen between luxury and non-luxury shoppers, include destination purchases, the product not being available in their home country, familiarity with