SET-listed retail and property developer, Central Pattana Plc (CPN), looks set to spend 500 million baht to spur spending on shopping during the New Year festive season.
Of the total spending, 400 million baht will be spent on its marketing activities in the upcoming year-end festive season and the remaining 100 million baht will be slated for its New Year's countdown events, said Nattakit Tangpoonsinthana, the company's executive vice-president of marketing.
"Although the Covid-19 pandemic still persists and customer traffic is yet to get back to the level of the pre-crisis period, we are set to spend heavily a budget on par with the pre-crisis level to launch our New Year campaigns which align with the country's reopening with an aim to establish Thailand as a world-class shopping destination, and stimulate the tourism ecosystem as well as community economies,'' Mr Nattakit said.
According to Mr Nattakit, the 'Forwarding Happiness 2022' campaign will run at 35 Central shopping centres from Nov 12, 2021 to Jan 6, 2022.
There are many highlights during the New Year campaigns including the tallest Christmas tree in Southeast Asia at CentralWorld, the 14-metre tall 'Mork Pan Wa' Christmas tree which is the first of its kind with materials from Doi Tung, and an ice-skating rink surrounding a giant Christmas tree at Central EastVille.
The company expects the 56-day campaign to increase visitor traffic by 30% from last year.
Mr Nattakit said the overall shopping sentiment has gradually improved since October of this year and the increasing momentum is expected to continue, particularly after the government reopened the country early this month and offers more vaccinations.
Currently, customer traffic is 100% back to normal at its shopping complex in Mahachai in Samut Sakhon and Rayong and 80-90% at its complexes in the northeastern region and 70% in Bangkok.
The company expects that customer traffic in Bangkok will be back to 80% of the pre-crisis level in the fourth quarter of this year.
"If there is no fifth and sixth wave of Covid-19 outbreaks, we are confident that the overall retail sector will be back to become normalised over the next 2-3 years," Mr Nattakit said, confirming that the company will continue to launch its New Year countdown events. But, the scale of the events is under consideration and pending talks with the Public Health Ministry and the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration.
"Now, some countries have yet to allow their people to travel abroad. We have to monitor the situation of the retail and tourism markets after the country's reopening for two weeks before moving forward on New Year's countdown events,'' Mr Nattakit said.