The Golden Week holiday at the beginning of October has always been a time or spending in China, this is not to say that Chinese New Year isn’t as important, but the latter is typically a time when getting together with one’s family is the norm and although money changes hands and is spent, its more often money that was gifted rather than the individuals own cash.

So the October break has become a time of indulgence and relaxation, even more so in the past few years. For the middle and affluent classes, this is likely to be a time of travelling, in particular outside of Mainland China, in some part pure tourism, but more recently with greater emphasis in search of lifestyle activities. For the lower middle classes international travel is less likely, but a few days in a tier one city is likely to become the objective. Again this is a lifestyle choice and something to talk about with ones friends and family afterwards, but these people are not luxury shoppers….

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