Source Fashion wrapped up last week with the “leading responsible sourcing show” citing a 32% increase in visitor numbers, although it didn’t give actual numbers.
In its third year, the event is a platform for retailers, brands, and wholesalers seeking ethical and responsible manufacturing partners from around the world.
But it was about more than fashion with visitors also coming from sports teams, major brands, and businesses such as the NBA, West Ham Football Club and Pepsi — all of them tracking down sustainable clothing.
Laura Taylor, ESG manager at Boohoo, summed it up saying: “Source is a great event to meet suppliers from new regions, watch engaging talks from a variety of fashion experts and network with passionate individuals who are providing innovative products to our industry.”
The event featured 200 exhibitors from over 20 key sourcing regions, including Turkey, Taiwan, Ethiopia, Egypt, China, India, the UK, France, Hong Kong, and Portugal.
And there was plenty of upbeat talk with exhibitors from both the UK and abroad writing orders.
Parneet Kaur of India’s Achiever Apparel from India said the show was strong for the firm and it picked up some new customers there.
And Ayu Siti Maryam from the Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia said that “the event has been great for us, Source Fashion as an event aligns with our objectives to support our manufacturing industry. We have bought with us the right companies and they’re happy because they’ve had great business opportunities and valuable contacts to follow up on.”
Thailand’s ambitious goal of attracting as many as 9 million tourists from China this year looks in doubt, after the kidnapping of a Chinese actor started driving mainland visitors to the safety of Japan and Singapore.
Bloomberg
Flight cancellations to the country that brands itself as the “Land of Smiles” surged 94% last month, according to Bloomberg Intelligence research, as more Chinese opted instead to take their families to the ski fields and hot springs of Japan during Lunar New Year. Trips to Thailand in the first two weeks of February were still lagging behind last year’s levels, the note showed.
News of Chinese actor Wang Xing’s kidnapping to Myanmar through Thailand and his subsequent rescue prompted a wave of Lunar New Year trip cancellations by mainland travelers. Tourism-reliant Thailand has since cracked down on scammers and criminal rings that use the country as a transit hub to traffic unwitting victims to work in cyber-scam centers. But so far it’s done little to ease travelers’ fears
“Safety concerns do have enough weight with Chinese tourists to make them think twice about travel to Thailand,” Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Eric Zhu said. “Uptake of bad news has been far higher than steps it’s taken to boost safety, which will make its reputation repair a likely uphill battle.”
Flight bookings from China to Japan have, meanwhile, more than doubled in the first quarter from a year earlier, thanks also to the weaker yen and airfares as low as $150 from Shanghai to Tokyo. That helped Japan overtake Thailand as the top overseas destination for Chinese holidaymakers during the eight-day holiday this year. Visa-free entries to Singapore and Malaysia have also drawn Chinese tourists away from Thailand.
Japan alone attracted a record 980,000 Chinese tourists last month — more than double from last year, according to the Japan National Tourism Organization. Meanwhile, Thailand said nearly 711,000 Chinese had visited this year through Feb. 2.
Bangkok has shut power to operators of illicit businesses in Myanmar, while working with its neighbor to clamp down on the scam centers, from where more than 1,000 foreign workers, including several hundred Chinese, were recently freed.
Whether the crackdowns will help win back more Chinese tourists, the top source of foreign receipts in Thailand’s tourism industry, remains to be seen. Tourism, which accounts for about 12% of the country’s gross domestic product and a fifth of total employment, is forecast to bring in an estimated $55 billion this year.
It’s unlikely that Thailand will be able to hit the top range of its target for Chinese visitors, and will struggle to surpass the 8.8 million it proposes at the lower end if it doesn’t swiftly address safety concerns of Chinese tourists by the end of this quarter, Zhu wrote in the note. If the problem persists through 2025, Thailand may struggle to attract more than 7.5 million Chinese arrivals, he said.
There are some signs that concerns are abating, but it’s still too early to call a turnaround in sentiment. While bookings from China to Thailand for March are still down about 10% week-on-week, flight demand for April and May are showing growth of more than 3%, according to marketing firm China Trading Desk, which tracks the mainland travel market.
“The fear over travel to Thailand has ebbed,” said China Trading Desk Chief Executive Officer Subramania Bhatt. “Still, Thailand is way off compared to 2019, while both Malaysia and Singapore have a very strong recovery of Chinese visitors.”
Beyond shutting down scam operations, Thailand’s government and industry need to do more to develop tourism beyond the popular destinations such as capital Bangkok, the beaches of Phuket and the jungles of Chiang Mai, said Thai Hotel Association President Thienprasit Chaiyapatranun.
“Even Thai people love to go to Japan instead of going to Phuket domestically,” he said. “We have lost good quality travelers favoring the currency exchange. We need to do more, offer more destinations to attract visitors.”
François Pinault, the billionaire behind such brands as Gucci and Balenciaga, is amping up his investments in an industry far outside fashion: cruising. Ten years after the Pinault family’s private investment company, Groupe Artémis, took ownership of French cruise line Ponant—which has 13 ships best known for sailing throughout the Arctic and Antarctic—it has bought a majority share in Aqua Expeditions, a boutique luxury line known for exploring Indonesia’s Raja Ampat archipelago and the Peruvian Amazon in high style.
Pinault – Bloomberg
Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the announcement was made in mid-January. Aqua Expeditions’ Peruvian founder Francesco Galli Zugaro remains a shareholder and is staying on to run the brand.
The Aqua acquisition is a small one in terms of assets: The Singapore-based company has just five ships, all with capacities of 40 passengers or fewer. But the move represents a significant step toward increasing the Pinault family’s stake in the luxury cruise industry.
It comes at a notable time. On the one hand Pinault’s rivals, Bernard Arnault and LVMH, are doubling down on luxury resorts and travel experiences—mostly on land, though their investment in the Orient Express brand includes what’s set to be the world’s largest sailing ship, expected to debut in 2026. On the other, luxury hotel brands are investing in yacht-inspired, small-ship cruising, with Ritz-Carlton, Four Seasons and Aman all building their own versions of “floating hotels.”
With the Aqua acquisition, Artémis is committing itself to further growth in cruising. That’s according to Hervé Gastinel, a businessman and yachtsman who joined Ponant as chief executive officer in 2021. He was brought in by Pinault and his son François-Henri, who co-runs Artémis, to get the cruise line back in the black after the industry’s Covid shutdown. Gastinel says the Pinaults’ goal is to double Ponant’s revenue by 2028, though he didn’t disclose specific figures.
“After Covid there was obviously a reshuffling of the landscape of this industry,” Gastinel says, speaking to Bloomberg onboard Ponant’s 270-passenger Le Commandant Charcot. “A lot of cruise companies are open for cooperation, acquisitions, investments.”
Titans of cruising?
Although small ship cruising to remote places is a niche market, the Pinaults want to be as recognized in that arena as Kering SA is in fashion. “We can build leadership in that segment,” Gastinel says. Despite its reputation for leading luxury retail brands, Kering has struggled financially in recent years, with Gucci’s 2024 fourth quarter sales down 24%.)
The Pinaults thought Gastinel was the right person for that job thanks to his track record scaling small companies: As CEO of leading pleasure craft company Groupe Beneteau, he led a four-year growth period that saw revenue increase from €970 million to more than €1.3 billion.
Now Gastinel is scaling Ponant, aiming to fast-track growth through more acquisitions. He considered buying Hurtigruten Expeditions, he says, but that company’s five ships, which top out at about 500 passengers, felt too large. The ideal ships, Gastinel says, max out at 300 guests.
Even that would be large for Aqua and Ponant. Both fleets compete more with private yachts than, say, megaships with dinner buffets. And they are more expensive than some charters, too. At the top end, Ponant’s 15-night North Pole sailings start at $50,000 per person, and more than double that for the top suite—caviar, Champagne and Alain Ducasse-designed dinners included. Aqua’s ships can be even pricier. The 16-passenger Aqua Mare, the world’s first superyacht in the Galapagos, charges around $30,000 per person for seven nights in its sprawling Owner’s Suite. Cabins on Aqua Blu, a separate 30-passenger ship that explores Indonesia’s biodiverse Raja Ampat region, start at about $10,000 per person for seven nights.
Gastinel says Aqua and Ponant are natural siblings. “We can build some interesting bridges between the two companies,” he says, adding that tropical and polar destinations make for nice combinations.
In addition to the Ponant ships, the company separately markets the one-ship line Paul Gauguin Cruises in French Polynesia, acquired in 2019. And Ponant’s revenue includes full-ship charters by such prestigious tour operators as Abercrombie & Kent and Smithsonian Journeys, including in Antarctica.
Growth Mode
Ponant inherits Aqua in growth mode; a third ocean ship under construction is set to explore the outer islands of the Seychelles and Tanzania’s Zanzibar Archipelago. And Ponant is building new ships, too. Last spring it added its first six-cabin sailing catamaran, Spirit of Ponant, to explore areas such as Corsica and the Seychelles (a newly hot destination); Gastinel says more may follow.
Then there’s river cruising, another area where Gastinel and Artémis want to double down. “There are a lot of beautiful rivers in the world that are still unspoiled and fit for expedition,” Gastinel says, pointing to the Zambezi as one option. “That’s where we want to grow and launch the next generation of ships.”
But competition will grow alongside Gastinel’s ambitions. Take Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd.: It announced last month that it will also expand into river cruising with its upscale Celebrity Cruises brand, with 10 initial ships expected to sail around Europe starting in 2027.
Onshore Developments
The Pinaults’ focus on cruising will, ironically, extend onto land and even into the air.
“We want to offer our guests a product that includes pre- and post-cruise stays, flights and so on,” Gastinel says, outlining a plan that would make Artémis’ cruise line a full-fledged tour company. “That is the direction we are following.”
As for Gastinel’s biggest challenge? It isn’t money.
Aware of the ironies of operating in remote and fragile landscapes, he’s committed to growing the company’s sustainability efforts. In 2030 or thereabouts, he hopes to debut the world’s first net-zero-carbon ship, a 594-foot vessel that will carry about 200 passengers and operate on wind and sun energy combined with non-fossil-fuel-powered batteries. It would be a prototype for additional ships, so Gastinel is looking for a multi-ship deal.
But amid a busy growth period sectorwide, many European shipyards are already maxed out with orders from other lines. Trying to be at the forefront of sustainability is one thing; construction bandwidth, it turns out, is another.
In a bid to keep the shine on struggling natural diamond sales, industry giant De Beers has launched a verification device to differentiate natural gems from their laboratory-grown competitors, the company announced Monday.
Only Natural Diamonds- Facebook
The “DiamondProof” device is meant to confirm authenticity of precious stones “formed deep within the Earth billions of years ago”, De Beers said in a press release, at a time when the industry faces strong competition and plummeting prices.
A black scanner-like machine available at retailers in the US, it detects “the distinct chemical compositions of natural diamonds”, De Beers said.
“The natural diamond industry is in a constant effort to create separation from lab-grown” gems, which are cheaper and only take a few weeks to be produced, diamond industry analyst Edahn Golan told AFP.
The launch “is part of a wider effort in the diamond industry to pull itself by the bootstraps” through marketing, pricing and consumer education, Golan said.
Diamond sales have struggled to recover since the Covid-19 pandemic, facing a downturn in consumer spending, particularly in China.
Diamond-producing countries like Botswana, where the stones account for 30% of GDP and 80%of exports, have been hard hit.
Mining titan Anglo American announced last May that it planned to sell off De Beers, which was founded in 1888 by the British colonial figure Cecil Rhodes and has long dominated the trade in diamonds from southern Africa.
Entertainment8 years ago