Several luxury goods makers have reported an increase in sales recently, with the latest being a 19% increase in year-over-year sales at Hermès reported last week. This is on the heels of LVMH reporting an 11% increase earlier. April same-store sales at Saks were up 3.2%.

What’s interesting though is much of this rebound is coming not from established markets, but from the developing world. Apparently we’ve moved on to other things, if you believe the results from a groundbreaking survey last month. Conducted by Dwell Research (an offshoot of Dwell magazine), the participants making $200,000 or more annual aren’t engaged with the brands you would expect. Here’s how Advertising Age saw the results:

According to the survey respondents, “luxury” brands, per se, are no longer important to them, or even relevant; neither is “overall social status,” they say. This generation of nouveau riche is shunning “conspicuous consumption” in favor of brands that represent quality, aesthetics and authenticity. These attributes, along with uniqueness, integrity, design and performance, represent today’s “prestige” for these high-end consumers. And their emerging values and brand motivations make these consumers a more diverse group than one might assume.

This is interesting because it ties into the dramatic growth in luxury tourism in Latin America. People go to Peru, Brazil, or Belize for very different reasons than they go to Paris or Dubai and it has very little to do with showing off. The tours are more authentic, the hotels are more individualistic, and the experiences are more about doing than being seen. Perhaps it’s part of the reason why nowhere in Latin America is the upscale hotel scene dominated by international chains. Apart from the rare Four Seasons or Ritz-Carlton here and there, you stay in lodges or inns with a real sense of place.

A brand does not have to be expensive to attract New Affluents. What they’re now demanding from brands is a new and different kind of relationship. And, as supported by these findings, the days of controlled, top-down brand marketing are over, especially for this sector. These wealthy and would-be elites are actually looking for brand interaction — a dialogue — based on integrity, authenticity and performance. And not only are they equipped for interaction, they’re demanding it.

So what brands do New Affluents find meaningful, authentic and relevant? Apple, Sony, BMW and Ralph Lauren, unsurprisingly. But Crate & Barrel, Ikea, Whole Foods and Levi’s, too. Porsche, Lexus, Chanel and Viking. And Target, North Face, Volkswagen and The Gap. Missing from this segment’s 75 favorites list are classic luxury brands like Cadillac, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Armani and Versace.

It may not surprise you, if you’ve spent time on adventure tours in Central or South America, that Gucci and Versace don’t make much of an appearance—except when you’re around upwardly mobile locals. What you will see on travelers are lots of are brands that are defined by durability and quality. North Face, yes, and also ExOfficio, Tilley, Keen, Eagle Creek, and Canon. Whether ungodly wealthy or just well off enough to travel in style now and then, we’re looking for brands that deliver and have integrity.

The one big caveat in this study is the median age was 45. So grandma may still care about the prestige of the label. If you’re looking to the future though, attributes like integrity, sustainability, and value are going to have to trump sheer cachet.

Here’s the full analysis from AdAge

What about you? Do luxury brands still matter, whether it’s Armani or Aman Resorts?

LVMH Cheval Blanc Resort in the Alps

The world’s largest luxury goods company, LVMH, is extending its reach into hotels and resorts. Using the name of its Bordeaux winery, Cheval Blanc, the Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton company will add to its current French ski resort hotel with ones in Oman and Egypt in 2012 to start.

As with many hotel brands like Ritz-Carlton, the company won’t actually own the resort, but will put its name on them and take a management fee for running them. There will be a whiff of LVMH in the air though, with Givenchy spas and shops in the store featuring Louis Vuitton and Dior. I expect there will be plenty of their brands highlighted on the wine list and at the bar as well.

So far there’s no plans to enter the Latin American market with these hotels, but Terrazas de los Andes wine from Argentina will probably make an appearance and 10 Cane rum is pretty close—from Trinidad.

As you pick up some roses for your sweetie this Valentine’s Day and pay twice the rate of the rest of the year, take solace in the fact that they went through a lot to get here. Those pretty flowers you are holding were probably growing in the soil of Ecuador or Colombia just a few days ago.

There’s a bit in the Quito and the High Valley story we published recently about a rose plantation I visited near Otavalo. There I saw the process in action, people working against the clock in the short window they have between cutting and shipping.

Basically the process works like this. The flowers grow until they are exactly the right shape, the workers moving through the rows each day cutting just those particular ones. They move on a cart to the cleaning area, where some of the excess leaves are stripped and they are cut to a uniform length. Then the flowers moved to a refrigerated packing room where like colors are sorted and packed together. They go into a colder refrigerated room and are packed into boxes. The packed roses go onto a refrigerated truck where they make the journey to Quito’s airport.

Each night thousands of boxes of roses leave the Quito airport and fly to the U.S., Russia, and Europe. On the other end they are loaded onto more refrigerated trucks to go to distribution centers. After that they get to your local florist then onto a dining room table or cubicle desk. All within a few days so they don’t start wilting.

So what are you paying for when you lay out the cash for those flowers? A little for the flowers themselves, but mostly for a lot of coordinated shipping.

Want some chocolates instead? Ecuador won’t mind. They ship out plenty of cocoa as well.

Most travelers heading to Central America and South America are not doing it just to lie on a beach every day or putter around museums. So if there’s an element of nature or adventure in your itinerary, make sure you’ve got some decent travel gear before taking off. If what you’re packing is 10 years old, that stuff is probably far heavier and less durable than what you can get today.

Historically late August and September have been the best time to buy travel clothing and gadgets on sale. Retailers both real and virtual need to move out the warm-weather inventory and move in the fall/winter gear. When you add in a slumping economy and fewer people traveling, it’s a bonanza out there for the savvy shopper.

Here are a few great sales going on right now. Most of them are only going on for a few weeks, so go browsing now instead of putting it off.

Semi-Annual Sale: Up to 70% Off 12,000 Items at Backcountry.com

Find Sale and Clearance items at REI.com!

Teva sandals and shoes on sale now for men! 40-80% off for a limited time!

Clearance Sale Up to 50% at RockCreek.com

Extra 10% OFF + Free Shipping over $50 at eBags.com

Magellan’s Web Specials

Swiss Army Watch Closeouts – All 50% Off!

ExOfficio.com Sale – Up to 70% off the original price

Now through September 2nd at Sierra Trading Post: Spend $100 – Get $30 gift card Use Code: ALAUGUST9 at Checkout.

In Europe? Click here for huge discounts at WildDay.com

Milagro tequila

I’ve been wanting to review Milagro Tequila for a while because no matter what airport I’m flying out of in Latin America, Milagro always seems to be front and center at the duty free store. But who are these guys? You never see their bottles in a regular store in Mexico—just in the U.S.—and I don’t recall ever seeing an ad or a review in a magazine. (In all fairness, their website does link to four reviews from last year, though one of the magazines—Travel + Leisure Golf—is now kaput.)

Unfortunately, their Flash-heavy website is high on form, light on substance. I still have no idea where this tequila comes from and who is behind it. The contact page lists only a single e-mail address, with no phone number or physical location. Is Dr. No running this enterprise, or is it the front business for a drug cartel? Probably not, becaue it is distributed by William Grant & Sons, the same well-known distributor that has Glenfiddich and Hendrick’s Gin in its portfolio.

The proof is in the product though and I have to admit that from a price to payoff standpoint, this tequila is a bargain. In many duty-free stores, you can get the blanco version for 20 bucks and the reposado version for under $25. When I was in Mexico City recently they were offering a 3-for-2 special, but traveling alone I couldn’t stow that much in my luggage. I picked up some of their agave nectar instead for my wife and it was a pretty and useful gift.

I’m not going to tell you that Milagro tequila will blow you away and one sip will be a transformative experience. The reposado I bought, however, was more than good. It is good enough to sip on its own and it made a killer margarita I was happy to serve to my guests a few weeks ago. (And no, I don’t use that awful store-bought margarita mix, so you really could taste the tequila.) It’s a bit sweeter and more flowery than the norm, with a triple-distilled smoothness that would appeal to those not accustomed to drinking this spirit neat.

If you’re looking for tequila that will cover the basics for a good price, Milagro is good enough and if you are trying to grab a gift for someone, the bottle is pretty enough to make it look much more expensive than it is. For a step up in price to a C-note or so, there are versions that are truly impressive from a visual standpoint (second set in the photo above), but again at about half the price of competitors’ most showy versions. In my opinion you have to have a really sensitive and experienced palate to tell the difference between a $50 tequila bottle and a $250 tequila bottle anyway. Extensive aging doesn’t help tequila, so after a certain point it’s more about the bottle than what’s inside. Unless you’re buying for a true conneisseur, Milagro is a good bet.

Related Luxury Latin America story -Â Tequila Gets Ready for its Close-up in Jalisco