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China Consumer Behavior Economics Trend Watching

China, Socialism & Consumer Behavior: Shoppers go abroad for luxury bargains

Chinese consumers spent about US$7.2 billion on luxury goods overseas during the week-long Spring Festival holiday, a 28.6 percent jump year-on-year, according to a survey […]

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China Consumer Behavior Economics Trend Watching

Consumer Behavior in Brazil & China: US to increase the number of tourist visas

The United States should increase the capacity to process visas for Brazil and China by 40% over the next 12 months, ordered President Barack Obama recently, as part of a stimulus package for tourism for their country, announced in Disney World in Florida […]

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China Consumer Behavior Economics Trend Watching

China, Socialism & Consumer Behavior: Hotel industry experiences building boom

China is witnessing an unprecedented boom in hotel construction that is changing the face of the global hospitality industry. The country will have the highest number of hotels under construction and room openings in the world for each of the next two years, according to figures released by Lodging Econometrics, the US-based hotel retail estate market analysts […]

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China Consumer Behavior Economics Trend Watching

China, Socialism & Consumer Behavior: World adapts to waves of Chinese tourists

While the rise in numbers of Chinese tourists travelling overseas are influencing the world tourism landscape in economic, cultural and other ways, the destination countries are also adapting themselves to the booming influx of Chinese tourists […]

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Design Economics Innovation

Design in Brazil: overcoming exchange rate pressure and increasing exports with innovation

Despite the devaluation of the dollar is affecting the competitiveness of Brazilian industry — especially manufacturing — companies such as Marcopolo, Anatomic Gel and Inova Electronic Systems have managed to maintain their level of exports and to increase sales to other countries to invest in innovation, refinement and reduction of production costs […]

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China Consumer Behavior Economics Trend Watching

China, Socialism & Consumer Behavior: Super-rich in growing passion for investment

Demand for art, watches, rare wines, vintage cars and other offbeat investments expanded in 2010 as the world’s super-rich rebounded from the financial crisis, according the latest World Wealth Report […]

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China Economics Trend Watching

Intellectual Property: China accounts for 85% of fake goods seized in EU

Just a couple days after Chinese Ministry of Commerce declared that China’s piracy problem is not “extremely serious”, the European Commission reported that European customs intercepted one billion euros worth of counterfeit goods last year, with 85 percent of the fakes originating from China […]

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China Consumer Behavior Economics Trend Watching

China, Socialism & Consumer Behavior: World’s top luxury brands compete to tap Chinese market

Prominent luxury brands are scrambling to get a slice of the competitive Chinese market. The 2011 Tianjin International Luxury Exhibition was held recently, right after the World Luxury Association WLA released its 2011 annual official report recently in Beijing […]

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China Economics Trend Watching

Living in China: Shanghai now more expensive than New York

Tokyo is still the world’s most expensive city to live in and Oslo and Osaka still make the top five, but the Worldwide Cost of Living 2011 survey just released from the Economist Intelligence Unit also revealed some dramatic changes in the last year […]

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Design Innovation

Watch Joshua Walters’ “On being just crazy enough” talk at TED

At TEDs Full Spectrum Auditions, comedian Joshua Walters, whos bipolar, walks the line between mental illness and mental “skillness.” In this funny, thought-provoking talk, he asks: Whats the right balance between medicating craziness away and riding the manic edge of creativity and drive?