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Michel Phan, Director of the MSc in Luxury Management & Marketing and Associate Professor of Luxury Marketing, is an expert when it comes to the Luxury Industry. In an article published by the Korea Herald, Professor Phan explains why the Asian Luxury Industry is booming and how “more and more Asian luxury firms are starting to emerge as genuine competition to the ubiquitous Western brands.”

To illustrate his statement, Michel Phan talks about Korea and China: “A recent report from the U.S. business consultancy McKinsey & Co. revealed that sales of luxury goods in Korea have risen by at least 12 percent year-on-year since 2006. And with Goldman Sachs reporting that China will become the number one consumer of luxury goods globally by 2015, the growing appetite for luxury in Asia looks set to maintain sales growth for the world’s leading high-end brands.”

Not only are these two countries flourishing in terms of sales growth in the Luxury sector, but they are also creating their own Luxury Brands, attracting many people to buy local luxury products. Among other brands, Michel Phan mentions Couronne, a Korean Luxury Bag Maker, as well as Spectator, a Korean Luxury Clothing Brand “that embodies Korean design and cultural figures and which has recently outsold famous brands such as Alexander McQueen and Balenciaga in the Shinsegae Department store in Seoul.”

Couronne, Spectator and many other Luxury Brands hold great potential to become highly competitive in the global luxury industry “since their foundations are solid and their core values are anchored in what all luxury brands must have: excellence in design, in craftsmanship, in manufacturing and in raw materials. And this is why the leading firms should be worried.”

Professor Phan continues his article by stating that Western Brands “rely almost exclusively on the strength of their brands to protect them from the competition” and even though this approach has worked until now, Western Brands ought to be careful of the Asian Competitors. “Heritage and history can only protect a brand for so long and if the established names fail to innovate or produce products that speak directly to the Asian market, then they may be faced with the same fate as the U.S. car makers in the 1960s and 70s whose share was eroded by Japanese competitors”, says Professor Phan.

As the Asian Luxury Market is forever flourishing, it is essential for the MSc in Luxury Management & Marketing students to master the Asian Luxury Business Environment hence their trimester in Shanghai on EMLYON Business School’s Asian Campus from April to the end of June.