MANILA, Philippines—An expense of over US$2 million may seem a bit much for a five-day series of fashion shows even for high-luxury designer labels. But if long-term profit projections are correct, MasterCard Worldwide has strong reason to stage the just-concluded MasterCard Luxury Week event in Hong Kong for the second consecutive year.

Luxury-goods spending in Asia-Pacific is estimated to grow at an average of 12 percent annually until 2016, according to a study conducted by MasterCard. It says spending of Hong Kong’s elite alone will increase to over 73 percent, or the equivalent of US$17 billion by 2015. A large part of this amount will go to fashion and luxury goods, said the report.

“It’s quite a significant investment,” said Simon Locke, managing director of IMG Fashion Asia-Pacific, when he revealed the budget to regional media in Hong Kong at the conclusion of the event last Saturday. “But it allows us to give publicity to designers.”

IMG Fashion is MasterCard’s partner and co-presenter of Luxury Week, and similar industry events like the Singapore Fashion Festival, Rosemount Australian Fashion Week and Rosemount Sydney Fashion Week.

Retail center

Luxury Week was held in the grand ballroom of the swanky Four Seasons Hotel in Central. The hotel is part of the International Finance Center complex, which houses the upscale ifc mall. Some of the event’s participating brands, which give out discounts and freebies to cardholders—Agnès b., Anne Klein, Anya Hindmarch, Chopard and Cerruti 1881—including the exclusive Private i Salon favored by celebrities, are housed at ifc mall. HK is the first country in the world to host Luxury Week.

“It’s the center of luxury-brand retail in Asia-Pacific,” Locke explained. “The experience of luxury-brand shopping in this city is second to none in the region. The statistics are outstanding in terms of what its value represents in the entire fashion industry.”

While HK has only 7 million residents, it receives 23 million visitors a year. “Seventy-five percent of all dollars spent by tourists [in HK] are on luxury brands,” Locke noted. “You add to that the fact that half [of the number of tourists] are from Mainland China, the growing middle market, who [come to Hong Kong] because they don’t yet have in Beijing or Shanghai the variety of luxury brands in Hong Kong. Hong Kong is a catalyst of growth and development for luxury brands in the region.”

Until Oct. 12, participating brands are offering gift vouchers, discounts and freebies to MasterCard cardholders who spend a minimum amount on their shopping.

Better offer

But if a HK$300 voucher seems like loose change after a shopper drops HK$3,000 on a designer hankie, MasterCard had thought of a better way to sweeten the deal with top spenders. At Luxury Week, select cardholders from various markets in the region were given VIP access not just to the fashion shows but also to the goings-on backstage.

“Fashion shows are very exclusive,” noted Denise Keller, the Singapore-born fashion ambassador of MasterCard who stars in its regional “Priceless” campaigns.

“When you open doors to people who have never been to a show, [they] become part of fashion. That’s what we’re trying to do. Being invited backstage, [they learn] how hair is done, how makeup is done, how to use the products they buy, how the designer wants to show his collection.”

Backstage, select guests got to hobnob with models and industry insiders, sipped champagne and noshed with HK socialites, and even got free makeovers from Shu Uemura and Toni & Guy stylists.

“This is the consumer version of Fashion Week,” Locke said. “Fashion Week is for the industry, it’s for wholesale. There’s a huge appetite among consumers to know how a fashion show is done. And then they get to go straight to the shops to buy what they see in the shows. That is the basis of Luxury Week.”

MasterCard Luxury Week Hong Kong 2008 presented the Fall collections of labels such as Marc Jacobs, Kenzo, Donna Karan, Vera Wang, Oscar de la Renta, Diane von Furstenberg, Jean Paul Gaultier, BCBG Max Azria, Escada, including that of HK’s own Dorian Ho.