Central Festival in Phuket, a popular shopping centre for expats and Thai's is to receive a half million Baht face lift by owners Central Retail Corporation (CRC).
Phuket, Thailand -- (SBWIRE) -- 12/30/2010 -- Central Festival Phuket is to receive a half billion Baht face lift by the Central Retail Corporation (CRC).
The renovations, the first since its opening in 2004, will open an additional fourth floor with completion expected early next year.
What’s more, its three hundred retail outlets will spend one hundred and fifty million Baht to renovate their own stores.
Thanapon Tangkananan, CRC vice president for business development, commented; "The country's retail industry anticipates growth of between seven percent and eight percent this year, the highest in the past five years."
"Growth in the retail sector has been driven mainly by strong domestic consumption and exports, as well as good prices for agricultural products. Phuket alone has attracted more than seven million foreign tourists annually, which is half the total number of foreign visitors to Thailand", he added.
Once the renovations are complete Central Festival Phuket will be re-launched as south Thailand's premier international lifestyle and shopping destination.
Central Festival Phuket is hoping this will attract higher numbers of shoppers; mainly from Russia, China, Hong Kong, South Korea and Europe.
Lertvit Pumipitak, CRC executive vice president for business development, said; "The renovation will increase total retail space of the shopping mall from forty thousand square meters to fifty three thousand square metres."
Most of the expansion will come when the previously unused fourth floor is officially opened.
The new floor will focus on health and beauty and contains twenty retail shops, with total floor space of four thousand five hundred square metres.
Once renovations are completed, CRC expect the number of shoppers visiting the centre to increase by twenty five percent.
Currently, Central Festival Phuket attracts between ten and fifteen thousand people each day, forty percent being tourists.
Retailers and CRC are hoping this holiday season will see sales grow by more than twenty percent.
Author:
Rebecca Smith
Phuket Ocean Villas
http://www.phuketoceanvillas.com
Article source: http://blog.phuketoceanvillas.com/central-festival-phuket-adds-new-floor/