On November 11th, Francesco Matinata, Senior Designer of MCM Group China, gave a keynote address at the Lianchuang Real Estate Seminar focusing on the impact of children centered projects on mall visitations.
After “Golden Decade” of Chinese commercial real estate, parent-children entertainment commerce has become an important direction to drive visitor traffic to malls.
Mr. Matinada explained that “the Children’s market in China is very large with approximately 222 million 0-14 years old children, which produces annual revenues of 1 trillion RMB. Yet malls in the past did not emphasize the children market.” He further illustrated that Children businesses are less than 5% of the space per mall.
To illustrate some of the basic principles of children center design, Mr. Matinada used Garfield World as an example which is licensed and designed by MCM.
Children projects cannot rely upon being economically successful if it can only attract visitors once or twice a year because their market areas are usually only 3 – 4 kilometers. After years of research by MCM on visitation patterns, MCM designs programs that drive repeat visits. Creating membership programs with special privileges and providing parents with some educational benefits are key to driving repeat visitations.should provide sustainable services and products to keep attracting customers. Membership is a classic pattern.
Other key points of Mr. Matinada’s address was to emphasize that giving children free play experiences is highly important in developing their self-confidence, creativity and social skills.
He also stressed that children of different ages need different age appropriate activities. MCM is very careful to design spaces that meet the needs of each age group matching their developmental stages to specific experiences.
Finally Mr. Matinada stressed that China’s second child policy will bring another birth-wave. Chinese children market will grow steadily over the next decade and will play a more important role in attracting customers for commercial real estate like malls.
