Positive attitude permeates UK shopping centres
Published: 25 February, 2010
A new poll of UK shopping centre executives conducted for Shopping Centre by market research consultancy Business Blueprints, gives some small indications of optimism.
Asked to describe Christmas trading in 2009 in comparison to Christmas 2008, almost two-thirds (64 per cent) described it as ‘better’ to some degree, with around one-in-five of all respondents concluding things were ‘a lot better’. By contrast only 3 per cent saw it as ‘a lot worse’ with another further 15 per cent describing it as ‘a little worse’. Using a five-point scale our average rating was 3.6.
In terms of prospects for the first half of 2010 the largest group (43 per cent) rated this as ‘neutral’. Similar proportions either saw the next six months as being ‘very good’ (2 per cent) or ‘very poor’ (3 per cent) and again the ‘quite good’/’quite poor’ segments were equally balanced.
Asked about their biggest challenges for 2010 the key themes were perhaps not surprisingly ‘filling voids’, ‘attracting the right sort of long term tenants’, ‘service charges’, ‘budget cuts’, ‘cost management’, ‘maintaining momentum’, ‘retailer confidence’ and ‘consumer confidence’.
DePaul Latimer, director of research said: “Christmas certainly appears to have been a more positive experience than was projected beforehand, however the jury still appears to be undecided over the year ahead.”
