Consumers' attitude is shifting towards green issues

The hospitality industry needs to adapt to the increasingly sophisticated luxury market and consumers’ growing taste for environmentally friendly products.

Paul Abbott, senior vice president of Europe at card scheme provider American Express, told delegates at the Master Innholders General Manager’s conference yesterday that the luxury market had become more sophisticated.

Abbott termed this shift as a move from “experiential luxury” to “conscience luxury”.

In effect the tastes of the super-rich evolving to be less about the acquisitive – where brands are seen as badges of success - to a more considered approach, where the search is for “authentic” products that demonstrate social awareness.

“It is increasingly about spiritual wealth, rather than material wealth,” said Abbott of the super-rich consumer. “People want to know where their luxury products and services are coming from and what the environmental and social costs are.”

Key concerns, he added, were truth, transparency and trust in the luxury products of the future.

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Master Innholders website >>

American Express website >>

By Emily Manson

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