The new shopping map: Destinations where luxury is still worth buying

For years, luxury travel came with a fixed shopping arc. Paris for fashion. Milan for leather. Tokyo for tech. New Delhi and Mumbai for couture. The traveller’s shopping map was easy to read and easy to follow. 

That map hasn’t disappeared. But it also no longer works the way it once did. 

Access has flattened and brands have travelled. As the price gap narrows, luxury has become globally visible and increasingly interchangeable. What now determines value is not where something is bought, but whether being there changes the decision at all. 

At Indulge Global, a Goa-headquartered luxury lifestyle concierge service, the starting point is not the city or the category. “We don’t start with the destination or the brand. We start with the travelling unit,” says cofounder Advita Bihani. 

Most international trips today involve families. And families are not a unified consumer. “Each member has a different relationship with money, objects and memory,” says Bihani. Indulge breaks travelling groups into micro-profiles: The collector, the craft-lover, the experience-led buyer, the utility shopper, the trend-driven teen. The first filter is deliberately strict. Can this trip create a better outcome than buying at home or online? If not, the category is removed. 

This approach reflects a larger shift playing out across global luxury. Shopping is no longer about accumulation or price advantage. It is increasingly about context, participation, and decision quality. Travellers want fewer objects, but ones that carry authorship. Whether something will still feel right five years later matters as much as how it feels in the moment. 

So, shopping is anchored around interaction rather than retail density. Workshops, studios, factories, and hands-on making take precedence over flagships. The purchase becomes proof of participation rather than consumption. 

This logic reshapes how cities are valued. Few global capitals still “own” categories the way they once did. Where ownership exists, it is because of craft depth or structural advantage, not reputation. Many cities now function primarily as distribution points.   

London and New York have shifted from origin hubs to convenience cities. Dubai, frequently positioned as a luxury destination, operates as an access and assortment centre rather than one of craft or innovation. These cities remain part of the itinerary, but the reasons to shop in them have narrowed. 

Paris still matters, but not for what can be shipped or stocked globally. Its value lies in atelier access, fittings, archival buying and long-term relationships. Italy’s reputation for leather similarly contracts to specific ecosystems, particularly small-batch shoemaking, and workshop-led production in and around Florence, rather than flagship retail.   

Tokyo remains one of the few cities that continues to justify category ownership. Not for mass tech, but for precision retail.    Tools, knives, niche fashion and materials benefit from an ecosystem where selection, fitting, sharpening and engraving are integral to the purchase. Being there does not just change what you buy. It changes what you discard. 

In India, Delhi and Mumbai retain relevance not because of scale, but because of process. Fittings, customisation and continuity still require presence. The value lies in participation, not display. 

Beyond the metros, other cities earn their place for similar reasons. Jaipur continues to matter for traditional jewellery construction and unheated stones, where material knowledge and handwork shape the outcome. Chennai and Kanchipuram remain tied to silk because weaving clusters, sourcing and finishing are inseparable from place. Kolkata’s ateliers still justify travel for bespoke tailoring, where craft and relationship outweigh speed. In each case, the city matters only when being there changes the result. 

Alongside these familiar cities, a quieter shopping map has emerged. One shaped by material difference rather than mythology. Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia earns its place for cashmere because of fibre source, vertical integration, and value. Kanazawa matters because it produces nearly all of Japan’s gold leaf, and allows access to the craft itself. In Asakusa and Kappabashi, knives are fitted tools, sharpened and engraved as part of a larger ecosystem. Design villages like Iittala and Fiskars deepen the purchase of Finnish glass and tools in ways city stores cannot. Oaxacan alebrijes carry meaning when sourced directly from workshops in the Mexican state. 

Mouth-blown glass from Iittala, Finland | PHOTO: INDULGE GLOBAL

What tends to hold up is rarely accidental. A purchase makes sense only when a few things come together. For instance, the craft is better; access changes the experience; the price difference is real; or the object carries a meaning that cannot be separated from where it was found. When only one of these is present, the temptation usually fades. When none is, the decision rarely gains a second look. 

For lifestyle concierge services, this often means stepping in rather than stepping up. Buys are quietly redirected when travellers already own better versions, when a category doesn’t belong to a city, or when novelty risks ageing badly. “People confuse visibility with value,” Bihani says. Travel heightens impulse. What lasts is whether the object carries anything beyond the receipt.