“We organize shopping tours, which are customized and curated for people who travel to shop," says ... [+]
It’s not news that luxury consumers are going more experiential. They are spending more on luxury experiences, like travel and dining, and less on luxury goods, such as fashion, jewelry and beauty. Talk with anyone in luxury goods during one of those after-hours “in vino veritas” moments and they will tell you this shift toward luxury experiences has them plenty worried.
Boston Consulting Group and Altagamma, one of the industry’s authoritative sources on market size and trends, predicts that the experiential luxury market will grow nearly twice as fast (44%) from 2018 through 2025 as personal luxury goods (23%).
Global luxury tourism gets the lion’s share of that experiential spending. It will total $831 billion by year’s end and is predicted to achieve a 7.3% CAGR over the next five years to reach $1,182 billion, according to a new report from Statista.
One experience that most every luxury tourist wants when hitting the road is to shop in the best stores and not necessarily the most well-known ones. And what every local business selling luxury goods in a tourist destination wants most is to bring those high-spending tourists in. But that can be a challenge if they are not located on Main Street, High Street or in a mall.
To the rescue comes LookStyler. It bridges the gap by introducing high potential luxury shoppers to local luxury fashion businesses with a shopping experience designed just for them. For local fashion boutiques it turns shopper tourism into a business-building strategy, not just a hope that well-heeled tourists will find you.
LookStyler is officially described as a “global styling platform that connects professional fashion stylists, fashion designers, and travel companies with luxury fashion lovers.” Translating that into plain English, founder and CEO Mirjana Perkovic, who splits her time between New York City and Brussels, explains, “We basically organize shopping tours, which are customized and curated for people who travel to shop. We drive tourist traffic to local retailers with a fashion stylist as the guide.”
Mirjana Perkovic, CEO LookStyler
Professional travel agents and hotels often provide referrals, but travelers can tap the LookStyler service directly online. There they can engage a professional stylist to take them around town to the best places to shop. Services are offered in 65 international luxury shopping destinations.
NYC is the world’s top destination for shopper tourism
Based in NYC, routinely rated the world’s number one shopping destination, LookStyler matches the client with a top-notch local stylist based upon the client’s tastes and preferences after completing an online style questionnaire. Once the match is made, the stylist takes them on their tour providing both personal shopping and styling services. Half-day and full-day packages are offered.
While the LookStyler stylist can take clients to big-name stores and showrooms, their specialty is finding those out-of-the-way shops that a person will miss walking down the main luxury thoroughfares.
“We help our clients discover those special boutiques and designers where they can find something truly unique. In New York if they want to go to Saks or the new Neiman Marcus store, we’ll take them there. But we find that when people are traveling, they want to get the local community experience. We give them that,” Perkovic says.
Currently, LookStyler has over 1,000 stylists on its roster, all with fashion degrees and years of experience. Many of them work with celebrities or style for magazines, television and movies.
With their A-list credentials, the stylists are drawn to LookStyler because it gives them unprecedented exposure to international clients. “Our stylists speak the local language and they know all the best stores. We create unique local shopping experiences curated by a seasoned professional,” she continues.
Clients, in turn, are attracted because it gives them access to local stylists who know the best places to shop. “If you are going to Africa for a safari and you want to spend a day shopping before heading into the bush, you’d be at a loss to find those special, noteworthy places to shop. Our local stylists provide that.”
In addition to travel agents, including Virtuoso, luxury hotels, airlines and others in the travel industry, including AirBnB and TripAdvisor, LookStyler also partners with Mastercard in its Priceless Cities program and NYC & Company which promotes travel and tourism in the city.
NYC businesses depend on luxury travelers
NYC & Co is an advocate for local businesses that depend on the tourist trade, which accounts for some $66 billion in revenues annually. Its Tourism Ready program is designed to help local businesses in off-the-beaten-path neighborhoods attract more visitors.
That can add up to quite a few new customers. NYC & Co reports New York City drew some 65.2 million visitors in 2018, including 13.5 million international guests. The top five markets for international visitors included U.K. (1.24 million), China (1.1 million), Canada (1 million), Brazil (920,000) and France (807,000). Last year marked the ninth consecutive year of tourism growth in the city and 2019 is predicted to continue the trend, with an expected 67 million visitors.
Shopper tourism is a rising trend in the travel market. In a recent report entitled “Global Report on Shopping Tourism” by the World Tourism Organization, Deloitte’s Lorrie King, said, “We have all seen the changing behaviours of today’s consumer; new buying patterns are emerging, technologies are evolving and the day of consumer-driven experiences is upon us. More and more we see that no industry is immune to these changes– and that includes the tourism industry.”
LookStyler can be a vital partner for local shops, boutiques, designers and stylists in NYC and across the globe to capture more of the luxury tourist spending while adding that experiential dimension that luxury travelers want. With LookStyler’s help, travelers can take home happy memories in the form of a fashionable new wardrobe.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/pamdanziger/2019/10/23/lookstyler-turns-shopper-tourism-from-hope-into-strategy-for-local-fashion-businesses-worldwide/
2019-10-23 09:58:46Z
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