Chinese shoppers visited Hong Kong in record numbers last week to splurge on $130,000 watches, vintage wine and diamonds, boosting sales for Sotheby's and retailers, including Omega retailer Hengdeli.

Merchants' sales were up as much as 30 per cent from a year ago during China's Golden Week holiday, says the Hong Kong Retail Management Association. Sales jumped more than 60 per cent in the Oct. 1-7 holiday, Hengdeli Board Secretary Tan Li said in an interview.

Swatch Group partner Hengdeli and Emperor Watch & Jewellery are opening shops in Hong Kong, home to the second-most expensive retail rent district after New York's Fifth Avenue, as record tourist arrivals and a stronger yuan boosted sales for 12 straight months. Hong Kong stands to benefit from the Chinese government's drive to boost domestic consumption as households in the nation accumulate $16.5 trillion of assets, the third most in the world.

"The spending power of Chinese consumers is amazingly strong and the rising yuan helped a lot," Emperor Watch executive director Henry Chan said in an interview. "What they pursue in jewelries and watches are no longer middle-priced pieces, but the expensive, sophisticated and limited items."

Hengdeli has gained 50 per cent in Hong Kong trading this year, beating the 8.6-per-cent rise in the city's benchmark Hang Seng Index. Emperor Watch, which sells Cartier and Rolex watches, surged 85 per cent in the same period.

Sotheby's broke its record for a jewelry auction in Hong Kong during the week, garnering $55.3 million Cdn. A 6.43-carat pink diamond set in a Van Cleef & Arpels ring was sold for $7 million.

"Mainland Chinese spending more than HK$1 million ($130,000) on watches today is not something unusual," Emperor's Chan said. "We sold one or two every day during the Golden Week."

The company's same-store revenue advanced as much as 70 per cent in the first four days of the holiday, he said.

Hong Kong is the biggest market for Swiss watchmakers, purchasing $209 million worth of timepieces in August, almost double the amount sold to the U.S., says the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry.

"There are a lot of mainland Chinese customers with strong consumption power," Hengdeli's Tan said.

Visitor arrivals from mainland China jumped 21 per cent to a record 662,248 during the week, from the same period a year ago, the Hong Kong Tourism Board said. The yuan advanced to the highest level against the dollar since 1993 on Oct. 14, spurring purchases in Hong Kong, which pegged its currency to the dollar. Mainland China excludes Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.

China's household wealth may more than double to $35 trillion by 2015, surpassing Japan to become the second-highest in the world, Credit Suisse said Oct. 8. China is now ranked third.

"Record mainland visitor arrivals are helping to keep a feel-good factor circulating through HK," said Donna Kwok, a Hong Kong-based economist at HSBC. "Chinese visitors offer higher-end retail outlets an easier source of demand to tap, spending on average 35 per cent more than their American counterpart."

That's helping landlords charge retailers more in the former British colony. Rents in Hong Kong's Causeway Bay jumped 9.6 per cent this year, Cushman & Wakefield says. That means the district maintains its ranking as the world's second-most expensive store-rental area, behind New York's Fifth Avenue, the broker said in its annual survey in September.

China's tourist departures may reach 130 million in 2015 from almost 50 million last year, Frederic Neumann and Song-yi Kim, economists for HSBC, said in a research note Friday. Spending by mainland Chinese overseas travellers may grow to more than $110 billion from $43 billion, they said. Between $80 billion and $100 billion will be spent in Asia, the report said.

Sales of Sa Sa International, which sells makeup and hair-care products, rose 13 per cent in its outlets in Hong Kong and Macau during the holiday, a statement from the company says.

"China has got a huge population to support the demand for whatever they want," Tsao Shiao Tien, a Taiwanese who bought a soapstone seal from the Qing Dynasty at a Sotheby's auction for $745,116. "There are so many mainland Chinese people around, and they're driving up prices."