UK club Quintessentially Lifestyle goes the extra mile for clients

From organising a surprise marriage proposal at short notice to sending children to British boarding schools, the needs of the mainland's super rich can be as varied as they are hard to execute. And that is where Quintessentially Lifestyle comes in.

The British club, which provides luxury concierge services to its members round the clock, found the growing number of high-net-worth individuals had shaped the spending patterns in the top-end consumer market, said Greater China managing director Vincent Lai Kar-leung.

"The mainland's new rich want to start at the highest level, or the most expensive membership, but Hong Kong clients tend to start from the bottom," he told the South China Morning Post. "But we did turn down some mainlanders as we don't know them and can't invite them to the by-invitation-only top-level membership."

Despite the recent economic slowdown, the number of mainland billionaires continues to rise. By January, it had jumped 13 per cent to 358 from last year, the Hurun Global Rich List showed.

Lai said the club's mainland members were primarily entrepreneurs aged 40 on average whereas those in Hong Kong were mostly Western investment bankers or top executives at the age of about 35.

"Mainland members in many cases change their minds constantly whereas Hong Kong spenders are comparatively more rational and reasonable," he said.

He cited a mainland member - an entrepreneur who was attending a business party in the Philippines and suddenly realised he wanted gifts for his hosts. The member rang Lai's team for help one Friday afternoon, saying he needed gifts for 13 people with a budget of 20,000 yuan (HK$25,000) per head on the following day.