We’ve heard a lot of UK luxury retailers and brands begging for the government to bring back tax-free shopping for tourists and now a major French brand has added its voice to the chorus.

Jean Cassegrain, chairman and CEO of Longchamp (which is best known for its bags), said that the tourism bounce-back post-pandemic has been weaker in London than in mainland Europe following the scrapping of tax-free shopping due to Brexit.

“For many, the No 1 reason for travelling is shopping,” he told The Times. “Most shoppers are not against a good deal. If tourists can get a better deal in Paris than in London, then they will go there instead.”

Big names in Britain from Burberry to Selfridges, Mulberry, Paul Smith and Watches of Switzerland have pointed out the flaws in the previous government’s assumption that tax-free shopping deprives it of vital revenue. The government believed that it would gain overall from abolition because 20% VAT refunds wouldn’t be offered to tourists. But research has shown that the UK is losing out as visitors don’t travel there, or if they do, they don’t do much shopping. This is denting revenue at shops, hotels, restaurants, and other attractions.

Bodies such as the British Fashion Council, British Retail Consortium and New West End Company have also been very vocal on the need to restore the status quo and also to extend the tax-free perk to visitors from the EU.

Analysis by the Centre for Economics and Business Research has claimed that as many as 2 million tourists annually aren’t visiting the UK because of the situation and that £11.1 billion in annual GDP is being lost. But the new Labour government has said nothing on the subject so far.

Longchamp — which recently opened a new boutique in tourist hotspot Paris — is stocked in a number of department stores around the UK and also has standalone stores in key tourist destinations such as London (both Regent Street and New Bond Street) and Bicester Village. So clearly a drop-off in spending by tourist is a major problem for it. 

Cassegrain is convinced that more shoppers would spend in central London if the new government changed the rules, saying that it would put London “on an even playing field again with the Continent”.

On another subject, the CEO of the family-owned firm also said that there’s “no chance” of his family selling the business, despite it seeing plenty of takeover interest from major European luxury operators.

“We very much intend to stay independent,” he said. “We think it’s one of the things that make us original and a little bit unusual in the landscape.” 

He admitted that running an independent luxury business has its challenges and clearly, for the UK market, the tax-free shopping issue is a big one.

However, he said that the company’s more affordable price points mean that it hasn’t seen the overall global slowdown suffered by many big names in the luxury sector and that it’s “still growing quite significantly. We have a unique position in the market that resonates well with the customer”.

Revenue at the business rose 44% last year.