City's tourists spend $8.64b overseas

Shanghai residents spent an estimated 53.4 billion yuan ($8.64 billion) on products and services abroad in 2012, the Oriental Morning Post reported Thursday.

The number of Shanghai travelers who spent money abroad grew 56.55 percent year-on-year in 2012 to 1.78 million, according to a report by the Shanghai Circulation Economics Research Institute.

The report also identified a growing trend in consumers who buy overseas products from online purchasing agents. Shanghai residents spent more than 5 billion yuan on overseas goods through these agents in 2012.

The report aimed to explore consumers' perceptions about both international and local brands in 2012, and ranked the brands according to brand awareness, brand recognition, brand ownership rate and other criteria.

Researchers calculated Shanghai travelers' total overseas expenditures by presuming that each traveler spent 30,000 yuan per trip. The report said travelers spent most of their money on the products of famous international brands.

The researchers compiled the report based on a survey that polled more than 8,000 respondents who were loyal customers of specific brands in 16 product categories, including cosmetics, clothing, bags, watches, electronics, cars and food. The report listed the top 10 most favored brands for each of the categories. Of the 160 brands, only 12 local brands made the lists, accounting for 7.5 percent of the total, the report showed.

Among the 12 local brands, five were jewelry brands, four were children's clothing brands and the others were for cosmetics, watches and dairy products. International brands held all of the spots on the list of the top 10 luxury bag brands.

"Shanghai used to have the most highly developed light industry in China and had many well-known local brands," said Wang Liang, deputy director of the Shanghai Circulation Economics Research Institute. "However, the heyday of local brands has passed. More and more international brands have flooded into the local market after the opening-up."

The decline of local brands is partly a result of fiercer competition as international companies are usually more experienced in brand building, Wang told the Global Times. Local consumers naturally turned overseas when they couldn't find any equivalent high-end products locally. 

Wang said the lack of vigor in design and combining design with the manufacturing also led to the decline of local brands as they lost their appeal to younger consumers.