Magazines Archives - 2008 February

HONG KONG retailers saw a busy Christmas holiday season last year, as shopper traffic increased by 11.8% over the previous year’s, according to the Experian’s FootFall Index (FI) released for Hong Kong last month.

Experian’s Hong Kong FI, which makes the territory the first in the Asia- Pacific region to launch the FI, provides a more definite picture of shopper traffic of major shopping areas throughout
Hong Kong. It allows retailers to monitor their businesses’ performance levels, giving them a better understanding of shopper trends in order for them to improve on marketing and operational efforts.

“Shopper traffic was buoyant throughout the year, confirming that 2007 was an extremely prosperous year for the retail industry, which is set to reach even higher levels for next year if
the trend continues,” noted Yannick Kennel, general manager of FootFall at Experian Asia-Pacific.

“Interestingly, the shopping centres started to get busy very early, starting end-October and
ramping up with a constant traffic build-up, which  cumulated into a record number of shoppers during Christmas week,”

Kennel continued. At the same time, figures for the first week of 2008 reflected a year-onyear
increase of 9.5%, affirming the overall sentiment that the holiday season proved robust in
Hong Kong. “The year 2007, the festive season especially, has proven to be exceptional for retailers in shopping centres. Now all eyes are set on 2008 to see if the good times will continue,” Kennel added.