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By Renee Hartmann Officially kicking off on Feb. 8, Chinese New Year is just around the corner. Generally considered China’s most important holiday, Chinese New Year marks a time when friends and family come together to celebrate and start a fresh new year. 2016 is the Year of the Monkey – the "Red Fire Monkey," to be exact. In Chinese culture, monkeys are considered very clever and smart, and the red fire monkey is particularly strong and dominant, filled with passion and force. Lucky colors in the red fire monkey year are gold and blue, lucky numbers are 1, 7 and 8, and lucky flowers are chrysanthemums and alliums. China has declared a national holiday this year from Feb. 7-13, which paves the way for the massive travel that corresponds to Chinese New Year, known as the 40-day Chunyun period. This is also the largest human migration in the world, with more than 3.7 billion trips made during the Chunyun period in 2015. In recent years, Chinese New Year has been a time for a rapidly growing number of Chinese citizens to travel abroad, as more seek to take advantage of easier tourist visas and – perhaps more importantly – escape the crowds at home. Accordingly, more retailers, brands, tourist destinations, and cities have ramped up their Chinese New Year efforts worldwide to cater to this important traveling demographic. Chinese New Year-themed products Over the past decade, we have seen a growing number of luxury brands release limited-edition Chinese New Year-themed products – often to mixed reception. This year is no exception, with brands such as Louis Vuitton, Prada, Kate Spade, Ferragamo, Tory Burch, Dior, Paul Frank, Rebecca Minkoff, UGG, Harry Winston, Armani, Godiva and many more releasing their own monkey-themed collections. (Here is a useful round-up of Year of the Monkey products by Chinese blogger Mr. Bags.) Overseas promotions and celebrations The number and scale of Chinese New Year promotions and celebrations taking place outside of the Chinese mainland continues to grow exponentially. Leading department stores and shopping centers worldwide such as Bergdorf Goodman, Bloomingdale’s and Harrods have launched special Chinese New Year promotions, Chinese New Year-themed window displays, limited-edition products, themed entertainment and other unique activations. In 2015, the Beverly Center in Los Angeles hosted the popular NBA star, Jeremy Lin, to place a wish on its Lunar New Year Wishing tree, while Madrid-based El Corte Inglés invited Chinese actress Liu Yun to launch a jointly developed limited-edition jewelry line.
Renee Hartmann is cofounder of China Luxury Advisors