Tourneau Luxury Watch Stores Lose CEO

by Ariel Adams (RSS feed)
May 28th 2009 at 6:01PM

Tourneau is the largest chain of watch retailers in the world with their largest store in Las Vegas in the Caesar's Palace Forum Shops, and headquartered in New York City. Like all retail watch stores, Tourneau has been hit hard by the economic slump due to drastically decreased luxury watch demand. On the plus side, they finally started to sell (some) watches online via their website. Notable is the sale of Tag Heuer watches online. Whether or not related to rapidly changing business environment of watch sales that prior to 2000 (or so) was more or less the same for 100 years, Tourneau's CEO of 18 years Howard Levitt will step down at the end of 2009.

His term might end sooner, as he will stick around until the company finds a replacement which might come earlier than the end of the year. Tourneau really became a focal point of luxury watch brands having such a vast presence all over the world, and having so many different brands for sale (which differ by location). Levitt was of course instrumental in that fact. Not sure if he was also responsible for Tourneau's in-house brand of less expensive watches which sort of serve as a consolation item to people who step in to the store not able to afford most of the popular brand watches but still wanting something.

Ariel Adams publishes the luxury watch review site aBlogtoRead.com.

Tags: ceo, howard levitt, HowardLevitt, store, timepieces, tourneau, watches

Filed under: Timepieces / Watches

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

mike May 28th 2009 11:34PM

bought 4 rolexes from tourneau. the last two in las vegas. when they finally shipped the fourth watch it was obviously used with no hologram sticker on the back and quite scratched. it was also the wrong bezel. it took many phone calls to finally get through to mr. levitt and too many phone calls with him before he admitted that a manager had been wearing the watch (i assume to work on his car engine judging by the condition of the watch). i'm still buying watches tourneau, but never again from your stores.

MM Jul 20th 2009 5:41PM

Buyer Beware Tourneau Las Vegas! DO NOT BUY! DO NOT BUY! I bought my first Rolex luxury watch at Tourneau in Las Vegas. Discovered it had scratches on the back of the face. Took it back same day and they exchanged for what they said was brand new. After much closer inspection, back of the bezel, on the underside edge, another ding! Back to Tourneau, within three days of purchase, they refused to exchange! I foolishly invested $6K with Tourneau, this is how they show appreciation for investing hard-earned dollars??!! I am irate! Two defective Rolex's from Tourneau, and they hide behind their store policy! They are common theives and criminals! They do not honor their OWN exchange policies! BUYER BE WARE DO NOT BUY! Go to a jeweler who respects your investment, especially when they talk about sales being down and a recessive economy! Give your money to a small jeweler much more deserving and willing to take care of you, much like a Rolex!