Swatch Group opened its tenth Tourbillon boutique this summer in a dream location: the trendy Puerto Banus district of Marbella. Imagine a marina dotted with yachts as white as the façades of the small typically Mediterranean buildings lining the packed quaysides; luxury boutiques rubbing shoulders with trendy boutiques and restaurant terraces, complete with a line-up of spectacular cars outside. Welcome to Puerto Banus. Access to this portside resort is mostly restricted to pedestrians. Boat owners and residents must pay a fee of 1,500 euros a year to be allowed to enter it with their vehicles. Given the considerable spending power in the area, many of them treat themselves to this little luxury. A single one-way street runs along the quaysides, before looping back through the tiny village towards the port exit. Located exactly opposite the marina entrance, the Tourbillon store is the only boutique that everyone has to pass twice – both coming in and going out. The seven brands represented thus derive maximum benefit from this visibility: Blancpain and Breguet (which have been topping the sales since the opening), Glashütte, Jaquet Droz, Léon Hatot and Omega, alongside limited series by Swatch. At the head of the Tourbillon network, Frederik Schreve has opened seven points of sale over the past 15 months in four different countries (Germany, Spain, Italy and Switzerland). This number will doubtless have doubled within three years. Next year in Switzerland, all the boutiques will be renovated according to the Marbella concept featuring pure lines that highlight the products. “We place a special emphasis on training our personnel and on the service we provide to customers”, he explains. The teams of the various boutiques communicate extensively with each other to ensure optimal follow-up on customers (the manager of the Lugano boutique was spending two weeks in Marbella at the time of this report). “We draw a good deal of inspiration from luxury hotel-keeping techniques and we are entirely dedicated to our clientele”. One of the advantages of selling only seven brands lies in the in-depth knowledge of each. The brands’ complete collections are available in all the Tourbillon boutiques, which also cultivate direct ties with the Manufactures. Newly launched products are available there before anywhere else, and sometimes exclusively so. This is particularly true of Léon Hatot products and Breguet jewellery. Distribution is becoming increasingly selective and strategic.