India: Demystifying the Luxury Mantra

The mysticism of India has always enchanted the west. Many westerners could not resist succumbing to her hypnotic culture and have since made India their permanent home. Historically, Indo-French business relations go back centuries.

During 1759 to 1954, the French East India Company established the territories of Pondicherry, Male on the Malabar Coast and Chandernagore in Bengal. Dr Francois Bernier was the personal physician to the Mogul Emperor Aurangzeb, and more recently Francis Wacziarg – a resident of India since 1969 – created the Neemrana luxury hotel chain.

Luxury goods and brands across industry sectors too are found to feel the need to enchant Indians with their wares and are humming the “Luxury Mantra”. But, is India new to Luxury? Not really. Consider the statistics:

• Diamonds were first mined in India over 3000 years ago
• The Taj Mahal, the luxury epitaph of love, was built in 1648
• In the last century the richest of all maharajas and rajas in India was the Nizam of Hyderabad, who ranked 5th on Forbes’ “All Time Wealthiest” with a net worth of $210.8 billion
• Forbes 2012 list confirms that today India has quite a few in the top fifty billionaire’s club.
• Its 250,000 HNI households are slated to more than double in the next three years, substantiating the projection that the Luxury industry will easily hit the $ 15 billion mark by 2015.

This article was written by Mr Gupta & was originally published in Luxury Society. To read the article in detail, please click here.