Luxury retail remained resilient during China‘s five-day Labor Day holiday — bucking a broader trend of cautious consumer spending — according to foot traffic data gathered by Bernstein across 10 high-end malls in four major cities.
Even though overall traffic dipped 5 percent below Chinese New Year levels in mid-February, Bernstein highlighted strong performance at LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton brands, Chanel and an acceleration at Compagnie Financière Richemont’s hard luxury brands based on holiday foot traffic at 10 luxury malls, including K11 and Harbour City in Hong Kong, IFC and Plaza 66 in Shanghai, Guomao, SKP and SKP-S in Beijing, and Taikoo Li, IFS and SKP in Chengdu.
The report noted the proprietary data may only reflect one component of retail store productivity, as metrics such as conversion rate and spending by luxury VICs were not captured by the numbers observed on the ground.
“Overall traffic remains 36 percent higher than the average traffic level observed over 2025’s key holiday periods, including Chinese New Year and National Day holidays in 2025. No data was collected in May 2025, limiting our ability to make direct year-over-year comparisons,” the report added.
In the soft luxury category, Louis Vuitton, Chanel and Dior were the three most popular brands, with Louis Vuitton accruing the most customers at its megastores, according to Bernstein data.
Richemont also enjoyed a holiday spike, with strong footfall at Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels.
“One suspects that the falling gold price, which would leave gold-heavy Chinese competitors in relative disfavor, improving fundamentals, spurred by new local management at Cartier and new collections like the Love Unlimited, and pre-buying in anticipation of rumored end of May price increases could be better explanations,” Bernstein observed.
In stark contrast, traffic growth at Hermès continues to underperform its peers. Bernstein observed that “2026’s creative explosion at Chanel and Dior could come at Hermès’ expense.”
Bernstein also observed positive traffic at Burberry, underperformance at Kering brands and “a significant deceleration” at Miu Miu.
Split by region, Shanghai ranked first in terms of overall store traffic, followed by Hong Kong, Beijing and Chengdu.
Consumer sales during this year’s Labor Day holiday rose 14.3 percent year-over-year, according to Xinhua News, China‘s state-owned news agency.
Overall tourist trips increased 3.4 percent, though spending per trip dipped compared with the same period last year — a sign that overall consumer confidence has yet to fully recover.
