Speaking at ttgluxury’s ‘Trends in the luxury sector: how to adapt to demands of the modern luxury traveller’ session, Philippa Wagner, senior futures consultant at The Future Laboratory, said there were eight noteworthy emerging trends.

First up - the Locust Effect, which sees consumers descend en masse on certain trends and is typified by the 45% of Chinese “luxurians” who admit they are watching for the next emerging brands and will switch to them in the next three years.

Wagner said: “Luxury brands are actually reporting groups of consumers ‘swarming’ on to a brand; they literally consume everything about it and then it is over and they move on to the next big thing.”

Another key trend she said to watch for was Continental Drift, which recognises the increasing importance of airports to “sixth-continent luxurians”, with many of them doing much of their shopping in specific duty-free airport locations globally; that market is expected to grow 51% to £47.6 billion in 2019 from £31.5 billion in 2014. Nigerian luxury travellers alone spend an average of £1,059 per visit to Heathrow, Wagner said.

Appreciating how important the airport experience is becoming was also key she said, with many airlines already making significant investments; Cathay Pacific’s The Pier first class lounge at Hong Kong International Airport is designed by Studioilse.