Japanese retail development
begins to show signs of life

Royal Ahold to quit Southeast Asia

Asia-Pacific’s largest mall set
to open in KL this October

First Courts store opens in Phuket

100 Lotus Supercenters in
China by 2006: CP Group

Revamps, renovations,
repositioning — S’pore malls go
all out to lure shoppers

HK’s CRE to slow expansion
plans in China

Schroder buys first retail
property in HK

Ikea’s largest Asian store
opens in Shanghai

Taipei 101 Mall set to open later
this year

Malls in S’pore fight back SARS
scare

OG to leave Great World City in
S’pore when its lease expires

More outlets outside Bangkok:
SF Cinema

Thailand’s Seacon Square earmarks Bt107 million for upgrades

 

MALLS IN S’PORE FIGHT BACK SARS SCARE

The Great Singapore Sale has given the island's retail sector a much-needed boost

Shopping malls and retailers across Singapore are banding together in a united front to restore public confidence in shopping in the midst of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome).

Developed by SPRING Singapore, the country’s Standards, Productivity and Innovation Board, the “Cool Program” aims to help organizations step up their precautionary measures against SARS with stringent preventive practices.

The nationwide “Cool Program” was launched on Apr 29, starting with the shopping centers. “We decided to start with the shopping centers because of the high people-to-people contact,” says Mr Lee Suan Hiang, the board’s CEO, at the Cool Certificate Award Ceremony held recently. The retail, hotel and F&B were the worst hit sectors by the SARS outbreak.

Mr Tong Kok Wing, general manager of BCH Retail Investment, ensures that procedures are in place to safeguard the health interest of shoppers in Parco Bugis Junction

Mr Lee says that under the “Cool Program” shopping centers were provided a 9-point checklist (see box story) to “ensure that they implemented good hygiene practices and put in place best practices to prevent SARS”.

Under the scheme, retailers who comply with the 9-point certification scheme will get “Cool” awards, which they can display to reassure customers that they are SARS-free.

And SARS prevention managers and teams will be appointed by the management of individual malls and shopping centers to oversee the implementation of the program and ensure that they comply with the requirements of the SARS prevention procedures.

Besides administering daily temperature checks for all staff, tenants, contractors and suppliers who enter their premises, shopping centers disinfect daily all shop areas and common facilities, plus they must maintain records of all measures carried out.

Teams from SPRING Singapore will do the checks and the businesses will be audited every two weeks. Those who fail will lose their awards.

Among the first shopping centers to be certified for adhering to basic preventive measures like good hygiene practices and temperature checks was Parco Bugis Junction. “Our recovery actions were very swift. We understand how important it was to do something quickly, and we put in measures that provided a safe environment for our shoppers and tenants,” says Mr Tong Kok Wing, general manager of BCH Retail Investment, which owns Parco Bugis Junction.

At the start of the SARS outbreak, Parco Bugis Junction had already begun to take the temperatures of all staff and tenants at the shopping center twice a day. In addition, all toilets were steam cleaned, and parts of the building frequently exposed to hand contact like lift buttons were cleaned with disinfectant every two hours.

The program, now covering 183 shopping malls, has since been extended to include supermarkets, food outlets, restaurants, hotels and tourist attractions.

With sales falling up to 70% in the nine weeks after Mar 14, when Singapore reported its first cases of SARS, the retail industry is now showing signs of recovery. A major shot in the arm was the launched of the annual Great Singapore Sale on May 30, which coincided with the World Trade Organization (WHO)’s declaration of SARS-free status for Singapore, effectively taking Singapore off its list of SARS-affected countries.

Now in its 10th year, the six-week Great Singapore Sale is a great shopping season for Singaporeans and tourists where they can enjoy huge savings on discounts offered by retailers across the island.

During the opening weekend of the sale, shoppers thronged the streets and malls drawn by the plethora of discounts retailers offered, while others simply seized the opportunity to soak up the atmosphere of Singapore being declared SARS-free.

CapitaLand, which manages seven malls, said traffic in its suburban malls—Junction 8 and Tampines Mall—was back to normal, about 350,000 shoppers a week. The company says there are signs that shoppers are coming back to the malls, and it expects the traffic at
its other malls to be back to normal soon.

WHO was full of praise for Singapore’s handling of the SARS crisis, calling it “exemplary” from the start.

Its executive director for communicable diseases, Dr David Heymann, was quoted as saying: ÔThis is an inspiring victory that should make all of us optimistic that SARS can be contained everywhere.

“It is certainly time for Singapore to celebrate and to congratulate its public health and other workers who have done a tremendous job.”