The up to 80-90% discount campaigns have been attracting Bucharest people into shopping centres, although sales are down, causing retailers to settle for lower rents in several malls.
The first three modern shopping centres opened in Bucharest – Bucuresti Mall (1999), Plaza Romania (2004) and City Mall (2005) – have kept their number of visitors steady, although last year also saw the opening of Militari Shopping and Liberty Center, which in turn attracted some of the shoppers.
Representatives for Anchor Grup, which owns and manages Bucuresti Mall and Plaza Romania, says each of the two projects attracts around 35,000 visitors per day. In turn, Mihai Agaficioaia, City Mall manager, says the project’s summer traffic remained steady, at around 13,500 visitors during the weekdays and reaching peaks of 15,000 visitors in weekends.
"There were quite a few visitors at Plaza, as well as at Baneasa (Shopping City), although I went there on a Tuesday. I think people, women mainly, were attracted by the clothing discounts, but their carrier bags were not as laden as before," said Lorena, a mall visitor. Shopping centres that opened more recently also attract visitors, although the figures are below those expected by managers.
Liberty Center recorded a daily traffic of around 15,000 visitors in early July, while Militari Shopping attracts at least 7,000 people during weekdays and 12,000 in the weekend.
"At the weekend, in the shopping gallery alone and Auchan, excluding the boxes outside, which accommodate Praktiker, Decathlon, Domo stores, as well as C&A, Tina R, Takko, and Deichmann, we saw around 7,000 visitors per day during the weekdays and 12,000 daily in the weekend. There are many people going into the separate boxes, but who don’t go into the gallery, so traffic is much more significant in the overall shopping centre than the figures above," said Bogdan Dancau, managing director of Atrium European Real Estate (AERE), owner of Militari Shopping mall.
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