Malaysia set to emerge as a paradise for shoppers next year
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Foreign and local tourists can expect a more exciting shopping experience during Visit Malaysia Year 2014.
Getting foreign retailers to rent mall spaces and bringing in new brands would be among efforts made to draw in more shoppers next year, said HC Chan, Malaysia Shopping Mall Associations’ president.
“We are looking at ways to sell our shopping experience more effectively outside of Malaysia,” he said at the Council of Centres Conference 2013 yesterday.
Chan said the association, in collaboration with the tourism and culture ministry, was making efforts to draw in more tourists next year by making the shopping experience more exciting.
“Our members will be finding more common interests to work on and collaborate with the ministry,” he said.
Chan said they would be targeting Asian tourists as they contributed up to 85 per cent of Malaysia’s shopping sales.
He also said that they would work with the ministry to promote 20 to 40 malls where tourists were likely to go for the three annual sales periods, adding that the shopping industry would likely have it good in 2014.
Kuala Lumpur Pavillion chief executive officer Joyce Yap said among the new brands that shoppers could look forward to next year would be Hamley’s, MCM, Tory Burch, Liujo and Halston Heritage.
Yap, who is also advisor for the Association for Shopping and High Rise Complex Management, said to compete globally for shopping sales, shopping mall management have to enhance sales by making their malls attractive with varied retailers and brands as well as keeping the cost of managing malls low.
Ministry shopping secretariat head Ramzi Abu Yazid said they would work with the industry to get Malaysians whom often shop overseas to shop locally instead.
At the event, secretary-general Dr Ong Hong Peng, read out Minister Nazri Aziz’s speech, saying shopping constituted 30.7 per cent of tourist receipts totalling 60.6-billion ringgit (Bt603 billion) last year.
