CANNES, France — DFS, the LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton-owned travel retail operator, said Sunday that it’s opening the primary “seven-star” luxury retail and entertainment destination, in Hainan, China, by 2026.

DFS Yalong Bay is the biggest project ever conceived by DFS. It’s to stretch over 1.38 million square feet and carry greater than 1,000 luxury brands, including those from LVMH. The location will even boast immersive concepts spanning categories resembling fashion and apparel, beauty and fragrance, watches and jewellery, wine and spirits, advantageous dining, and food and beverage.

“To create a luxury and entertainment offer, you have got to have the ability to juxtapose and sometimes mix the varied experiences,” Benjamin Vuchot, chairman and chief executive officer of DFS, told WWD. The chief is in Cannes to attend the Tax Free World Association, or TFWA, trade show, which opens Monday.

The budget earmarked for DFS Yalong Bay was not divulged.

Through the coronavirus pandemic, Hainan became the leading travel retail destination for Chinese people, and luxury brands have been flocking there. One other lure is that by 2025, the island is predicted to turn out to be a free-trade port.

Hainan overall is on target to turn out to be amongst the biggest luxury retail markets across the globe in the following five years. By 2030 alone, it’s estimated that there might be greater than 80 million visitors per yr to the island.

DFS believes its recent location there could attract greater than 16 million visitors yearly by 2030.

“Luxury retail today will not be enough,” said Vuchot. “We’re also bringing entertainment and plenty of additional activities to make it the place to go to when holidaying in Sanya, in Hainan.”

Sanya is on the island’s southern tip.

DFS has coined a recent star appellation, saying this is supposed to be a “seven-star” experience — much more luxurious than a five-star one.

“Now we have a pioneering spirit,” said Vuchot. “We prefer to go above and beyond. We’re famous for having led the travel retail industry throughout the last 60-plus years.

“We thought, with that pioneering cap, and with that spirit of elevating always the experience for the shoppers, we might bring the following generation of experiential retail in a spot that’s going to draw thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of tourists for the years to return,” he continued.

“It’s necessary, in fact, to anchor the project around a really, very unique collection of luxury brands, because at the top of the day the Chinese customer remains to be incredibly attracted by the long-lasting presence of the luxurious maisons,” the chief added. “We are going to group different experiences across the product categories.”

That might be, as an example, concepts related to watches and jewellery, beauty, in addition to how men need to shop.

“Once you speak about beauty, we speak about wellness,” he said. “On top of that, and this is admittedly the core of our product offering: We’re going to dedicate an enormous a part of the property toward kids and teenagers.”

Vuchot said among the many unique characteristics of Chinese consumers visiting Hainan is that they’re multigenerational travelers.

“You come along with your children and fogeys, and being a tropical place, in fact you have got the gorgeous beaches,” he said. “So it’s necessary also to create a destination-within-a-destination for the tourists in Hainan. And youngsters are an incredible opportunity for us — to offer them the space to play, to rejoice, and likewise to seek out merchandise that may delight and surprise their parents or their grandparents.

“It’s not been really intentionally done up to now, but we predict that it can [be] an excellent complement to the offering that we now have,” continued Vuchot, who remained mum on specific details, but shared the notion of an indoor park — “something quite spectacular, something really wild that makes sure that the youngsters will want to return back,” he said. “And after they come back they usually’re comfortable, their parents are comfortable, they usually have their playground to enjoy with us.”

Amongst the placement’s other features will likely be 45 restaurants. Five minutes away from DFS Yalong Bay, the primary bay developed for luxury tourism on Hainan, will likely be greater than 12,000 hotel rooms, representing about 22 percent of Sanya’s five-star hotel capability.

“So establishing this seven-star luxury retail and entertainment center can also be matching the standard and the catchment area that we now have inside such a brief distance,” said Vuchot, describing it as “a cluster of common values that enables people to return multiple times they usually really turn out to be a part of this destination-within-a-destination.”

DFS Yalong Bay will likely be 25 minutes from the airport.

Vuchot said the project “also is admittedly showing our commitment to China. We’ve been very fortunate to have the ability to be a guide to the traveling customers world wide, and particularly to the Chinese traveling customers. But for us, having the chance with the free-trade port [coming], to herald the DFS know-how and experience in the center of Hainan goes to be very necessary.”

DFS is supporting the Chinese central government and the federal government of Hainan in further developing the island as a key destination and window into China.

“DFS Yalong Bay is the newest in a series of commitments we’re making in China,” said Nancy Liu, president, DFS China, in an announcement. “Yalong Bay area is undoubtedly essentially the most developed luxury natural cove in Sanya, where DFS will provide unparalleled personalized services to our patrons. This truly represents a considerable stride in DFS’s global technique to expand within the China market through a multiformat, multichannel expansion in the luxurious travel retail sector.”

Vuchot said the brand new project shows, as well, DFS’s “strong determination and optimism toward what we do and luxury retail typically.”