Hong Kong loses top ranking for luxury shopping

Hong Kong is no longer the world’s most expensive retail district after rents plummeted due to Covid curbs and restrictions on visitors.

Manhattan’s Upper Fifth Avenue is now the priciest street globally for shopping, according to a survey by commercial property firm Cushman and Wakefield Plc.

Hong Kong’s Tsim Sha Tsui district comes in second, followed by Italy’s Via Montenapoleone in Milan. This is the first annual survey since 2019.

Annual rents for Upper Fifth Avenue shops averaged US$2,000 (RM9,151) per square foot, up 14% from pre-pandemic levels, according to the report.

Rents in Tsim Sha Tsui in Kowloon fell 41% to US$1,436 (RM6,570) per square foot in the period, while those in Via Montenapoleone rose 9% to US$1,380 (RM6,314).

Hong Kong is struggling with a downturn after some of the world’s strictest Covid measures and the closed border with mainland China slashed the number of visitors. The city

“The Americas were the most resilient region, largely due to the fact that average rents are now 15% above pre-pandemic levels.” Cushman and Wakefield

received just 250,000 arrivals in the first nine months of this year, compared with almost 56 million for the whole of 2019.

London’s New Bond Street slid one place to fourth, with average rents down 11%, while the Avenue des Champs Elysees in Paris came in fifth after they fell an average of 18%, according to Cushman and Wakefield.

The Americas were the most resilient region, largely due to the fact that average rents are now 15% above pre-pandemic levels, the report said. In Asia, they dropped by an average of 17% because of border closures, it said.

Tsim Sha Tsui overtook Hong Kong’s Causeway Bay district as the city’s most expensive retail district, according to the survey, which tracks the top retail districts across 92 cities and ranks the priciest by prime rental value.

While Hong Kong has removed its most pandemic curbs, including hotel quarantines and flight bans, visitors are still subject to a series of restrictions and tests.