Sales of luxury goods have slowed down in China in the third quarter this year, with luxury brand makers attributing it to the government's campaign against excessive spending as well as the changing consumer habits of the Chinese.

The world's largest luxury group, LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA said, it had seen a significant decline in its sales in Asia in the third quarter of the year, and sales of handbags and cognac have also slowed down in China.

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Burberry Group Plc, the UK-based clothing company, said sales in China this quarter was "good," but it did not hit the double-digit sales growth it had been reaching in the previous years..

Burberry chief executive Carol Fairweather said that several factors have affected their sales not only in China, but in other parts of the world like the United States and Europe.

She said that Beijing's crackdown on corruption among its officials, the war in the Middle East and the Ebola virus scare, has affected travel and hurt sales in the third quarter.

"In the second quarter, we still saw high single-digit (sales) growth in Asia, and from the Chinese in China and when they were traveling," she said.

Fairweather said that their sales in Hong Kong, posted a double-digit growth in the first and second quarters.

In its recent 2014 report released in July, Hurin Luxury CPI, a Shanghai-based research institute said that China spending had been hit most by the government's campaign against corruption and excessive spending particularly on high-priced banquets in Shanghai and on the traditional Chinese liquor known as Kweichow Moutai.

The financial scene was very different two years ago, when luxury spending in China hit a record high, making the country the world's largest luxury market ,according to management consultancy firm Bain and Co.

Financial analysts predict that luxury spending in China will shrink two percent this year due to what it called "changing consumption patterns" and "greater controls."

Despite the prediction, luxury spending will not be that bleak at all. In a recent survey by Nielsen, a global information provider, 97% of those polled in China has put shopping on the top of their list as their top leisure activity ahead of other forms of entertainment.

The poll likewise showed that 90% of the Chinese who are going to travel will buy luxury goods before or during their trip. Out of this number, at least 40 % already knew what they are going to buy.

TagsLouis Vuitton, Burberry, luxury brands, Nielsen