Why Brand Experiences Are Redefining Luxury

As prices rise, attention fragments and more categories and brands compete for spend, customers are becoming increasingly selective about what feels worth investing in. Luxury clients are questioning purchases that feel too trend-driven, overexposed or unlikely to hold long-term value.

Instead, they increasingly seek luxury experiences that create lasting memories, emotional connection and a sense of belonging — whether that is shopping when travelling, participating in brand-hosted events or even choosing to redirect spend away from luxury goods altogether.

Luxury is becoming defined more by how brands make them feel. The experience associated with a brand or product can be seen as just as valuable as the product itself. Physical retail, brand experiences and travel are growing in importance as emotional touchpoints for luxury brands to shape loyalty and long-term engagement.

The store remains a powerful stage for luxury engagement, especially in China

The store remains one of the central places for brands to bring inspiration into experience. Retail space is a stage for signalling quality, positioning and cultural relevance — in a manner that would be difficult to replicate through digital channels.

This is especially true in China, where physical stores strongly over-index as a source of inspiration and are especially important to aspirational and occasional clients. This reinforces the store’s role to capture demand from new customers.

In the US, inspiration is more distributed. Stores remain important, but online retail, AI and friends and family all also play a meaningful role.

The sales associate recommended styles that suited my temperament and appearance, and even when there was no stock, she took off the jewellery she was wearing and let me try it on. A salesperson like that is also a storyteller of the brand’s culture.

—  ASPIRATIONAL CLIENT, CHINA

Physical retail should increasingly blend commerce, culture and community

Luxury brands are increasingly using physical spaces to deliver experiences that blend retail, hospitality, culture and entertainment.

Rather than functioning purely as transactional environments, stores are evolving into destinations designed to deepen emotional connection, increase dwell time and create social participation around the brand.

This is particularly important in China, where clients increasingly value immersive and educational luxury experiences that combine discovery with cultural storytelling.

For example, Louis Vuitton’s sprawling boat-shaped flagship, “The Louis,” opened in Shanghai in June 2025. It has become a popular destination in the city, generating foot traffic. Inside is an exhibit of historic trunks from the French luggage maker, a rooftop café and retail space — fashioned as a museum gift store — with ready-to-wear for men and women as well as leather goods. LVMH executives have flagged the example as a sign of interest from Chinese shoppers in fresh approaches to retail.

I recently was in Montecito, California travelling with friends and we went shopping… and I ended up buying a bag sort of on a whim, but a bag I’ve wanted for a long time. I decided I’m going to buy it now because then I’ll always associate it with this trip and have the memory connected and I love that. If I am splurging… I’d rather spend my money connected to a memory with my girlfriends.

—  ULTRA-HIGH LUXURY CLIENT, US

Brands like Tiffany and Bulgari have held gemstone exhibitions in recent years, where they show coloured gemstone pieces from different periods and someone walks me through them. That allows me to learn more about the culture behind them. Those are the aspects I think are different from the luxury events I have experienced before.

—  ESTABLISHED LUXURY CLIENT, CHINA

The retail experience can make or break brand perception, where expectations rise with affluence

As luxury clients place greater importance on experience, the quality of the shopping journey itself becomes a significant differentiator — particularly among higher spending tiers.

In both markets, clients describe store associates as capable of elevating or damaging the overall perception of the brand. They increasingly act as a curator of the brand relationship, not simply a salesperson.

In China, the shopping experience ranks as the second most-important driver of luxury desirability perceptions for established luxury clients, making the retail experience even more critical to get right.

Most stores now are pushing simpler or more trend-driven items that sell quickly, but when it comes to recommending what truly belongs to the brand’s cultural heritage and ‘brand memory,’ I think they are doing far too little.

—  ASPIRATIONAL CLIENT, CHINA

In the US, poor in-store experiences emerge as a major pain point. Clients describe boutiques as overly transactional, citing pushy sales tactics, long queues and “barriers to entry” that actively push them towards online or resale channels.

It sometimes feels like sales associates assume you will buy as soon as you walk in. They’ve lost the art of the soft sell, and that pressure puts me off.

—  HIGH LUXURY CLIENT, US

Clients in the US and China have distinct preferences for brand experiences

Travel and destination experiences are the most desirable formats in both the US and China, suggesting that clients increasingly associate luxury with immersion, memory-making and lifestyle integration. Interest in brand-hosted social gatherings also rises meaningfully with affluence, rising to 40 percent and 36 percent for established clients in the US and China, respectively.

In the US, customers show the most interest in lifestyle-related experiences, such as wellness and cultural events. Experiences increasingly function as a way to reinforce identity and care for oneself. Cultural events are most popular with higher-spending established clients, with 50 percent of this group expressing interest in attending them.

In China, after travel, experiential luxury is more strongly tied to service and relationship-building. Interest in private shopping and VIP events is strong and rises sharply with affluence — reflecting growing expectations around personalised service, convenience and high-touch clienteling.

Experiences that extend the brand’s personality enable clients to engage deeply in its universe

Luxury experiences are increasingly valued not as standalone marketing activations, but as an extension of the luxury relationship itself.

Cultural participation can act as a gateway for aspirational consumers in particular. For younger and aspirational audiences, participation itself becomes a form of luxury engagement — allowing clients to experience the brand’s world, values, and cultural positioning before purchase.

As a result, brands increasingly compete by creating culturally resonant moments that clients want to be part of.

I find it really fascinating to learn about how the brand started, the heritage, what they’re known for, the craftsmanship, the things that you wouldn’t necessarily know or experience in a store. I will always opt into an experience or an opportunity to learn about a brand.

—  ESTABLISHED LUXURY CLIENT, US

LVMH’s 10-year partnership with Formula 1 offers a unique platform at the intersection of sport, entertainment and hospitality. Across Louis Vuitton, Moët Hennessy and TAG Heuer, the partnership creates opportunities to host exclusive experiences throughout the F1 calendar. The tie-up also boosts the visibility of the brand with its bespoke, monogrammed trophy trunks placed at the centre of some of sport’s most globally viewed moments. Other brands are also getting involved. Gucci will be title partner of the Alpine Formula 1 racing team starting in 2027.

The Orient Express Corinthian provides another example. The largest sailing ship in the world, is operated by Orient Express, illustrating the expansion of the brand from its roots as a luxury train operator. Jointly owned by hospitality group Accor and LVMH, the sailing yacht has 54 suites for 110 guests. Online services include food by Michelin-starred chefs. A sister ship, the Orient Express Olympian, is planned to launch in 2027, also catering to clients at the very high end.

When customers have disposable income to spend, they are choosing to travel above all else

When discretionary income increases, clients consistently prioritise luxury travel across all client tiers, making it the dominant experiential category that replaces product as the primary indulgence. Clients highlight how service details, pre-empted needs and personalisation all create a luxury experience while travelling.

Jewellery is the strongest product-based alternative to experiences, confirming its role as an iconic, investment-like product category.

Luxury to me is more about the luxury of time, freedom, lifestyle and quality of travel. I don’t think one specific material luxury item can satisfy my vanity or give me the thrill of consumption.

—  HIGH LUXURY CLIENT, CHINA

How should executives respond to these shifts?

In both markets:

Capitalise on the desire to travel

• Travel is a priority focus for discretionary spend.
• Meet clients in those moments with retail, services and activations, when clients are already primed to spend on memory and self-reward.

Extend the brand into lifestyle ecosystems

• Partner with hotels, wellness brands, private clubs, restaurants and cultural institutions to embed the brand within clients’ broader lifestyle and identity.

Build experiences around product meaning

• Events and retail moments should not be generic hospitality.
• Anchor them in product stories relating to craft, provenance, styling or collectability.

In the US:

Create recurring participation models

• Shift from one-off brand activations towards ongoing ones.
• Create communities, memberships, wellness programmes and cultural series that keep clients emotionally engaged between purchases.

Own milestone moments before competitors do

• Build services and curated experiences around emotionally significant life moments (travel, weddings, career milestones, birthdays, motherhood) where customers are most willing to form long-term brand attachment.

In China:

Make the boutique the centre of the brand experience ecosystem

• Stores should function as immersive brand theatres where storytelling, bespoke service and relationship-building matter as much as conversion.

Redesign store success metrics around relationship quality, not immediate sales

• Reduce pressure-selling dynamics and empower sales associates to focus on repeat visits, emotional trust and long-term loyalty rather than same-day transaction value.

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