#Americart2019 Documentary to Highlight Importance of Promoting Art & Culture in America’s Heartland

Series will be shot by crew traveling cross-country, documenting real American’s connection with art and culture

Legit Productions, the New York City based documentary films productions company, announces the launch of the pre-production of #Americart2019, a one hour documentary and six episode series about art and culture in America, featuring intimate interviews of everyday Americans about their personal connection with art and cultural heritage and their connection to their own city and community.

Directed by the NYC artist and photographer, EFDLT Studio, #Americart2019 will be shot on location from NYC to Sonoma County, from mid August to mid September 2019, with a camera crew in a van crossing the country and inviting everyone on the road to be part of the project.

“My goal is to reach everyday Americans, meet people and discover their intimate relation with art using my years of experience of conducting interviews as a former social worker. I am hoping for open heart discussions to collect authentic stories and personal relationships with art and culture,” said EFDLT Studio, the film Director.

Co-produced by local Conventions and Visitors Bureaus, #Americart2019 brings a new narrative to the relationship of Americans with art and culture. The team will make stops in the cities and counties partners and take the time to explore their arts and culture scene: Montgomery County (MD), Franklin (TN), Pueblo (CO), Glenwood Springs (CO) and Sonoma County (CA) have so far joined the project.

#Americart2019 is presented by WhistlePig Rye Whiskey, an independent distillery in Vermont producing small batches of handcrafted Rye Whiskey.

“#Americart2019 is the first of a new generation of documentary film and series giving directly a voice to actual residents of small and medium size cities in America, with no filter, no preconceptions and no bias. We also want to encourage more domestic and international cultural travelers to discover the rich and diverse cultural heritage of lesser known U.S. cities and counties,” said Pierre Gervois, CEO of Legit Productions and #Americart2019 Executive Producer.

The documentary film and the six episode series will be released in 2020 for cable television and streaming platforms in the U.S. and internationally.

Everyone is welcome to join the project and learn more on the official website www.americart2019.com

English language magazines are the new cool for HNWI Chinese: iconic travel & shopping Gervois magazine now distributed to Shanghai Travelers’ Club members

GERVOIS magazine has been selected to be the new preferred global travel publication of the prestigious Shanghai Travelers’ Club, and is now distributed to its members.

GERVOIS magazine is proud to follow the steps of the iconic STC magazine, the Club’s own iconic travel magazine that has been published from 2008 to 2017.

Founded in Shanghai in 2008, the Shanghai Travelers’ Club is China’s most exclusive international luxury travel club for discerning Chinese global entrepreneurs and executives seeking experiential & authentic travel discoveries.

Its 12,000+ members have an average annual income of US$580K, travel overseas on average four times per year, and spend on average US$63,500 per year during their travels. 23% of them have invested in real estate internationally. Excluding their real estate investment abroad, they collectively spend & invest more than US$700M per year in travel related expenses.

Shanghai Travelers’ Club

As the vast majority of Chinese high net worth individuals who travel frequently overseas is now speaking Engligh fluently, the Shanghai Travelers’ Club members felt the need to partner with an English language luxury travel magazine.

The club has selected GERVOIS magazine for its acclaimed editorial content, featuring exceptional hotels, men’s fashion styling ideas, art investment, real estate investment, and their iconic travel photoshoots made by the New York based famous travel photographer EFDLT studio, Director of Photography.

Starting with the Spring 2018 issue, released on March 16th, GERVOIS magazine will proudly partner for the years to come with the Shanghai Travelers’ Club and invite its Chinese members to travel and discover the United States and the World in style.

More informations about GERVOIS magazine:
http://www.gervoisrating.com/shanghai-travelers-club/

More informations about EFDLT studio, Director of Photography:

http://www.efdltstudio.com/

https://www.instagram.com/efdltstudio/

Affluent Chinese shoppers trust Gervois rated hotels to book their shopping trips in the USA

The Gervois rating system is a hotel rating system created in 2016 by Pierre Gervois, a media entrepreneur based in NYC and widely considered to be a “Luxury travel guru” by wealthy millennial Chinese travelers coming frequently to the United States.

“Over the years, I have been disappointed by the numerous existing hotel rating systems” said Pierre Gervois. “Too often, there is a tendency to give too generous ratings to hotels members of luxury hotels chains, and to underrate independent boutique hotels”, he added.

Based on these facts, Pierre Gervois has created an entirely new hotel rating system, purely based on the sole merits of each property, considered alone, regardless of its association to a hotel chain, an affiliation program, other rating systems, or online reviews. Every hotel is rated professionally and independently, without any preconception about the property.

With 117 rated properties (33 new properties have joined in 2018 the prestigious ranks of the Gervois rated properties), this year’s ratings put a focus on the traveler’s experience rather than on old fashioned luxury.

The Broadmoor (Colorado Springs) is still #1 hotel, with 93pts, in recognition of the exceptional quality of service and dining, both unmatched at this level in any other property.

Four hotels make a remarked entry in the 2018 Gervois ratings with above 90pts ratings: The Ritz-Carlton Philadelphia (91pts), the Langham Boston (90pts), The Blackstone Chicago (90pts) and the Montana Paws-Up Ranch (90pts).

Independent properties with an incredible charm and authenticity make also the cut for the 2018 ratings. Amongst our favorites are Inn at Cuckolds Lighthouse (89pts), The High Lonesome Ranch (88pts), El Cosmico (87pts), Pioneertown Motel (86pts), and Casa Hudson (84pts).

As the Gervois Hotel Ratings are famous for their blunt and brutally honest ratings, some hotels get searing and hilarious reviews in 2018, in particular for uninspired decoration and failed interior design.

But on a more serious side, some high end hotels are reminded that disrespectful or discriminatory behavior with guests -Chinese or not- is unacceptable and must be quickly corrected through appropriate staff training.

For hoteliers, receiving the reviews like “The service is cold and sometimes condescending with guests who do not look affluent enough to the taste of the hotel’s employees” or “The training of the front desk staff should be seriously improved as the customer service sometimes reaches unacceptably low levels” must definitely trigger additional staff training sessions…

“Gervois Hotel Rating is on the discerning, multicultural and sophisticated traveler’s side, not on the hotel booking business’ side” concluded Mr Gervois.

The Gervois Hotel Rating rate hotels according to five essential criteria: Location, Building, Atmosphere, Dining and Service, each rated on a 20 points scale. The addition of the points give the final rating, on a 100 points scale.

The 2018 Gervois Hotel Ratings are available on www.gervoisrating.com

Also available on
Twitter: https://twitter.com/GervoisRating
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gervoisrating/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GervoisHotelRating/

Chinese shoppers in the U.S. can now use WeChat Pay & Alipay, China’s leading mobile payment solutions

Citcon, the integrated payment and marketing platform, announced a strategic partnership to enable brands in North America to accept WeChat Pay and Alipay.

WeChat Pay and Alipay are the most popular and convenient payment options for Chinese consumers to purchase goods and services. Adding these payment options to retail point of sale allows brands to now tap into an even larger revenue stream from Chinese consumers who are the largest spender, and fastest growing traveler segment to the North America. The platform enables brands to optimize revenue growth without the costs and hassles of establishing a business entity in China.

WeChat Pay is a fully integrated payment solution within WeChat, the world’s most popular mobile social communications service with 936 million active users and Alipay is a super lifestyle app run by Ant Financial Services Group with more than 450 million active users. Together these platforms jointly account for 90% of China’s mobile payment market share. Both super apps allow users to book a trip, hail a taxi, order food, purchase movie tickets, pay for water and electricity bills, manage investments, perform transactions on e-commerce websites and more to create a cashless society.

“China is changing fast. Mobile payment is the new frontier of commerce and China is leading this trend. By providing an integrated and easy-to-use payment solution, Citcon is creating a future that takes payment and marketing to the next level, empowering global merchants to drive business growth with millions of Chinese consumers.”said Chuck Huang, Founder and CEO of Citcon

As the first payment partner of WeChat Pay and Alipay, in addition to major credit cards such as UnionPay, MasterCard, Visa, Discover and American Express, Citcon is a one-stop shop for merchants to connect with Chinese consumers and accept payments anywhere. Citcon’s stand-alone mobile point-of-sale (mPOS), easy-to-integrate API and software products empower merchants to optimize growth both online and offline, with an easy and affordable rate compared to credit card processing. In addition to the convenient payment solutions, merchants will also be able to gain in-depth consumer behavior insights, manage business performance, run marketing campaigns, guides users to merchants stores while saving their shopping preferences for future visits and manage lifetime customer loyalty programs.

“Accepting WeChat Pay is a smart move for U.S. Retailers. That will definitely help with the category of budget-conscious Chinese travelers who choose to travel in groups. But they must keep in mind that the most affluent categories prefer to pay with their international credit cards, who show their status when traveling overseas and offer more perks in terms of miles and reward points.” commented Pierre Gervois, CEO of China Elite Focus Magazines LLC, a media group specialized in luxury travel publications for very affluent Chinese outbound travelers.

Source: Citcon / Chinese Tourists in America

Targeting Affluent Chinese shoppers the Bloomingdale’s way: Talking to the heart of Chinese tourists planning a U.S. trip

The growing purchasing power of affluent Chinese travelers is making it more important than ever for luxury brands and luxury retail brands to adopt marketing strategies to target them. With Chinese third-party mobile payment systems like Alipay and WeChat Pay beginning to set up shop in popular global tourist destinations, catering to this traveling consumer is becoming easier to do, but it’s not a brand’s only option.

Digital intelligence firm L2’s recent report “Cross-Border and Travel Retail: Connecting Digitally with China’s Shoppers” discusses ways brands can be targeting consumers online both during their journey overseas and before they set off.

“[Luxury brands] are under-serving the traveling Chinese consumer, whether it’s through their own brand site and its functionality and capability, their WeChat account, or from leveraging things like WeChat Pay and Alipay,” said Danielle Bailey, head of Asia Pacific Research at L2. “It’s a huge missed opportunity for them to not engage on these platforms that Chinese consumers are using all the time. Their phone is their number one travel accessory.”

Brands that do engage consumers digitally abroad with an omnichannel approach are using platforms like Alipay’s “Overseas Travel Channel (支付宝境外游)” to give travelers exclusive gifts, better exchange rates, or let them find deals near where they’re going, all within the app on their mobile device. WeChat’s website within an app feature gives consumers the opportunity to reserve a product online to pick up in a store and access store locators in their own language that they can hand to a taxi driver en route.
But about half of Chinese travelers are doing research on what they want to buy abroad before they leave, and luxury brands have been adopting strategies to target these consumers, according to L2.

In a dissent opinion, Pierre Gervois, Publisher of the STC magazine, a digital travel media in Chinese Mandarin, said “The most important for retailers is not the way Chinese shoppers are going to pay. It’s a technicality. Chinese Customers who want to make a purchase have plenty of options: Cash, credit Cards or WeChat Pay.  The really important thing to do is to convince them to choose a particular retailer”

“Too oftenly, we see U.S. retailers being obsessed by Chinese mobile payment systems when their strategy should be focused on branding their image to Chinese millennial travelers, and create an emotional connection with their future customers, based on their brand values”, Gervois added.

A good starting point is to provide an international store locator on their official online store in China, a strategy about 72 percent of brands employ. However, brands can also take it a step further by adding a Chinese-language travel retail site that let shoppers research the products, compare prices, read reviews, view maps that direct them to duty free shops, and even let them purchase the product online in advance so that they can simply pick it up at the airport if they’re in a hurry.
To help consumers find these pages, brands are paying for search term generated Baidu ads. L2 lists the efforts of beauty brands as an example—many brands pay for cosmetics-related key words, while others, like Lancôme, are taking a more travel-centric approach, targeting consumers researching phrases like “South Korean vacation.”

Some high end retailers, such as Bloomingdale’s, choose a more qualitative approach, and advertise in luxury digital travel publications about the U.S., like the STC magazine, available for mobile but also in digital inflight entertainment.

With a very creative advertising campaign created by China Elite Focus Magazines in New York, they organized interviews of actual Mainland Chinese customers while shopping at their Third avenue flagship store.  The story of six actual Chinese Bloomingdale’s customers has been published in the digital edition of the STC magazine: It has much more impact than buying keywords on Chinese search engines and directly talked to the heart of Chinese consumers.

While maintaining an engaging physical presence in airports and shopping malls is always important for marketing to the Chinese shopper abroad, brands that understand how to make the most of China’s digital sphere are likely going to more efficiently connect with Chinese travelers who are in the process of creating their luxury goods shopping list for their next overseas vacation.

Source: Jing Daily / Skift / Chinese Tourists Blog

Pierre Gervois: What Affluent Chinese shoppers want

Watch the exclusive interview of Pierre Gervois, Expert on marketing to very affluent Chinese travelers (and shoppers) in the U.S.

Bloomingdale’s smart strategy to target affluent Chinese shoppers in New York

We have all seen these cheezy advertising campaigns made by department stores or western brands trying to attract Chinese tourists in the last years: Be assured that affluent Chinese tourists were also smiling…  But it is going to change. Exit the low quality shopping publications targeted to Chinese tourists that ended in the hotel rooms trash bins. U.S. and European Luxury brands and high end retailers start now to advertise seriously with affluent Chinese tourists.

Although luxury sales in mainland China have still remained in slowdown mode in 2015, and Hong Kong has recorded a significant slump as well, Chinese spending remains a potent force in the global luxury industry, propping up growth rates in developed markets worldwide.
This week, Hermès reported a 22 percent increase in global sales in the second quarter, with sales in Japan leaping 33 percent—a figure attributed in large part to an influx of big-spending Chinese tourists attracted by a weaker yen and easier travel. On a global scale, Chinese travelers are spending lavishly: a recent Global Blue report found that Chinese tourist spending jumped 87.8 percent in June, while spending on leather goods in Europe grew by an even more staggering 93.7 percent. Year-to-date spending growth sits at a whopping 110 percent.
These numbers contrast sharply with the situation in mainland China and Hong Kong, one that is particularly striking in formerly triumphant Hong Kong. Last week, Burberry reported a “double-digit percentage decline” there for the three months ending in June, while sales of Swiss watches in the former British colony were down 21.2 percent in June, despite 3.3 percent growth worldwide.

These numbers further support the trend that growth is following Chinese tourists abroad, and brands need to keep up with their changing location preferences for travel—engaging outbound shoppers before they leave China and when they arrive overseas. Recent stats also illustrate the ever-shifting tides of Chinese travel patterns. Whereas Japan was, just a few years ago, faced with a Chinese tourist slump (caused in no small part by Sino-Japanese political tensions), the country is seeing a wave of Chinese arrivals and spending, owing to cooling attitudes toward Hong Kong and South Korea’s currency fluctuations and MERS outbreak.
Amid these rapid and unpredictable changes, what is clear is that brands need to have plans in place to quickly jump on opportunities, and ensure they’re able to reach and influence the Chinese outbound consumer wherever he or she happens to be in the world.
“Luxury retailers like Bloomingdale’s have well understood the importance of targeting affluent Chinese tourists”, said Pierre Gervois, CEO of China Elite Focus and Publisher of the Shanghai Travelers’ Club magazine, a high end publication in Chinese language for High Net Worth Chinese global travelers. “Bloomindale’s and the Shanghai Travelers’ Club magazine have launched a very creative marketing and PR campaign this spring showing actual Chinese customers and what it feels like to shop at the iconic Bloomingdale’s store in NYC.” Gervois added. This campaign has generated a considerable attention on Chinese social media and is the first ever campaign focused on the Chinese customer and the overall shopping experience in a U.S. luxury retailer. An example to follow for the industry.

Source: Jing Daily / Chinese Tourists Blog / Chinese tourists in America

New York City expects 1 million shoppers from China by the end of 2018

New York City hopes to reach 67 million annual visitors by 2021, and a big part of the plan is attracting big spenders from places like China and Brazil.
Of that 67 million goal, New York expects 16 million will come from international markets, and 51 million stateside. Based on city figures, 965,000 tourists came from Brazil, and 809,000 from China last year, which ranked Nos. 2 and 3 in international tourism to the city.
“China’s been growing a little faster in percentage from a rate-of-growth perspective, so China’s been a huge growth market for us,” said Christopher Heywood, spokesman for NYC & Company, the city’s official tourism bureau. “Brazil in the last few years has also been [growing], and it still will grow this year, but our big focus is on China.”
An informal survey by China Daily of major US tourist cities finds that the Chinese and Brazilians are substantially increasing their visits.
New York expects 1 million visitors from China by the end of 2018, Heywood said.
Only a few years ago, Brazil and China were not ranked in the top three international markets for New York, but have overtaken European markets such as France, Germany, and Italy.
“One thing about Brazil and Chinese is they don’t mind coming in the winter months, so for Lunar New Year, a lot of our Chinese visitors come during that period,” Heywood said. “The Brazil market, they don’t mind the novelty of being in the snow and being in the cold, so they don’t mind coming in those winter weather months, which is exactly the time of year we want to fill the gap and create more demand during the first quarter,” Heywood said.
Las Vegas is seeing a steady increase of travelers from the two countries, which along with Australia, have been major growth markets for the gambling capital, despite not having direct flights to any of the three countries.
“Our market share and growth has been very good, and our growth in Las Vegas over the last three years has been slightly higher than the growth to the US from China, so we feel very comfortable about that,” said Rafael Villanueva, senior director of international sales for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.
“We realize that we’re not going to go out there and get gobs and millions immediately, so we want to do it correctly,” he said. “As the second-tier cities in China start opening up, that’s going to be our volume market.”

“Chinese businessmen like Vegas to close business deals with their American business partners” noted Pierre Gervois, Publisher of the Shanghai Travelers’ Club magazine. ” we have seen a trend since the beginning of 2015, where Chinese Executives came to New York City for business, and organized a two days trip to Vegas, inviting their U.S. counterparts -sometimes in private jets-, in order to close their business deal and have good time”, Gervois added.
Those are the visitors who are going to the US to experience what Villanueva called the “sampler plate”. He said “they came and visited 10 cities in the two to three weeks they were here, and now they’re coming to the US to spend a little more time in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Las Vegas”.
Las Vegas welcomed 300,000 visitors from China in 2013, up from 263,000 in 2012, and 187,000 from Brazil in 2013, up from 161,000.
The Chinese make up a much smaller portion of Miami’s visitors, but there is growth. The city doesn’t have specific data on the number of Chinese tourists, only air studies completed by the city’s airport air service consultant, and it estimates that the Miami market generated 55,000 Chinese passengers in 2014.

Source: China Daily USA / Amy He

81% of Affluent Chinese male shoppers in the U.S. receive “Disappointing” service while shopping, study founds

The Shanghai Travelers’ Club magazine, China’s leading luxury travel magazine for High Net Worth global Chinese travelers, launches a new monthly regular section about Men’s Fashion.

“As Chinese entrepreneurs are becoming more and more international, they are more attentive to their personal style while in business meetings or in corporate events” said Pierre Gervois, Publisher and Editor-In-Chief.

The newly appointed Men’s Fashion Editor, Tyron Cutner, will be in charge of this new editorial feature.  An expert in men’s fashion, Tyron Cutner is a well known fashion adviser in New York City and will bring his expertise and style to the publication.

“I feel proud to be part of the prestigious Shanghai Travelers’ Club magazine. Every month, we’ll share with our Chinese readers the latest trends in Men’s fashion and accessories, as well as the basics that every international gentleman must have in his suitcase when traveling”, said Tyron Cutner.

Every month, starting in September 2015, the Shanghai Travelers’ Club magazine will feature a section providing fashion advice for the modern, style conscious, Chinese businessman.  Wether he’s attending a negotiation meeting in New York City, at a Charity ball in London, or attending a gala dinner in Paris.

According to a survey by China Elite Focus, 74% of Chinese male entrepreneurs and top executives aged 30 to 45 agree that paying attention to their personal style has a positive impact in conducting business.  And a staggering 81% think that they receive a “Disappointing” or “Very disappointing” welcome when shopping in the United States.

“It’s also important that fashion brands realize that they need to substantially improve the way they interact with affluent Chinese customers in the United States. We hope that this new editorial content will encourage U.S. retailers to implement long awaited changes in the customer service towards Chinese travelers”, Pierre Gervois added.

The Shanghai Travelers’ Club magazine is a China Elite Focus Magazines LLC publication withg offices in Hong Kong, Shanghai and New York City.

Average Chinese shopper spends $6,000 per California visit

According to the California Travel and Tourism Commission, Chinese tourists’ average spending of $6,000 per person during a trip to the US is the highest in the world. Wide selections of designer’s bags and shoes drive Chinese to California on shopping sprees. A 7,000-member Chinese tour group traveled to California last summer, and each member spent $10,000 on average during their one-week stay.
The biggest driver of this growth appears to have been the visa policy approved by Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Barack Obama in 2009. At the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in November 2014, the two leaders agreed to extend tourist visas to 10 years and student visas to five years.
Following the November agreement, U.S. consulates in China have recorded a 68 percent increase in visa issuance, indicating a spectacular increase in the plans for Chinese to visit the U.S. in the future, with most coming at least initially to California.
At the fall 2014 “Visit California Outlook Forum” attended by over 500 California tourism industry professionals at La Quinta Resort in Palm Springs, experts predicted that Chinese visitors will spend $2.2 billion in California in 2015 and 2016.
The China Daily reported that Kathryn Smits of International Tourism at the Los Angeles Tourism and Convention Board told the Forum that airline service between China and California major gateways of Los Angeles and San Francisco has increased 44 percent.
Chinese airlines have added new direct flights from Los Angeles to cities in China or plan to add flights due to the availability of Chinese-language services to assist travelers. In July, Air China will add a third daily direct flight from Los-Angeles and Beijing and China Eastern Airlines will start direct service to Hefei, in southeast China. Both airlines credit the relaxed visa policy for accelerating growth.
The Beverly Hills Visitor Center commented that more than half of the premier stores in Beverly Hills now employ Mandarin Chinese-speaking salespersons. Most stores in Beverly Hills stores accept China’s Union Pay credit card. Five-star Beverly Hills hotels now feature Chinese-style breakfasts and house slippers year round. The Visitor Center also provides shopping maps and discount coupons printed in Chinese. The Shanghai Travelers’ Club magazine, China’s most prestigious luxury travel magazine has endorsed Beverly Hills as a top U.S. destination for High Net Worth Chinese. It helps.
Well-heeled Chinese tourists seem to like what they have seen on their visits to the Golden State. Southern California real estate agent Le Yuan told the China Daily that he had seen a double-digit increase in clients this January. Many Chinese clients can fly here to see the houses and neighborhood,” Le said. “Travel is just so easy.”
Source: Breitbart