APPBI Encourages Mall Managers To Innovate To Increase The Number Of Visitors

Illustration (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - The Indonesian Shopping Center Management Association (APPBI) encourages mall managers to be more innovative in improving the experience and number of visitors.

One of them is by utilizing technology in the parking area which sometimes stresses consumers.

This needs to be done to attract consumers to come to the shopping center.

As is known, the level of public visits to malls or shopping centers is gradually recovering along with the loosening of restrictions on community activities after the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, mall managers still face major challenges to get consumers to return to shopping malls.

The Chairperson of APPBI, Alphonzus Widjadja, said that the COVID-19 pandemic had made some people switch to shopping online at the marketplace.

Based on APPBI records, it is estimated that 20 percent of Indonesians currently choose to continue shopping online, even though more and more malls have 100 percent of their capacity opened.

"As many as 20 percent of the people who will not return, think malls and shopping centers are just places to buy goods," said Alphonzus in Jakarta, Saturday, July 23.

Alphonzus said that the mall is not just a place to shop.

But it has another function as a place to find entertainment, recreation, and so on.

"That's why it's the job of mall and shopping center managers to innovate to improve the experience and journey of visitors," he explained.

The existence of this element of journey, according to Alphonzus, is the strength of malls and shopping centers when compared to online marketplaces.

"At the mall, visitors do shopping, not just buying things. Shopping activities must be designed to provide a pleasant experience," he said.

The fun journey, continued Aplhonzus, must also start from the moment visitors enter until they leave the mall parking area or shopping center.

Often, said Alphonzus, parking areas are a source of visitor inconvenience due to the impracticality of parking transactions, difficulty finding available parking bays, to long queues of vehicles when entering and leaving the parking area.

However, Alphonzus reminded that parking system innovation must also adhere to three main principles, namely convenience, speed, and security. These three important principles are offered in the innovation of the new parking system as a result of technology development by PT Centrepark Citra Corpora (CentrePark).

Meanwhile, CentrePark Chief Executive Officer, Charles Oentomo said, through this innovation, consumers can access parking areas in office areas, shopping centers or malls, hospitals, residential areas, and other commercial areas more quickly and practically.

In fact, building managers who implement this system can also reduce the potential for queues of vehicles that want to leave the building parking area. Given the congestion out of building parking becomes a problem in many places.

"With the various technological innovations that we have, we offer solutions to overcome these problems," he said.

To date, the CentrePark parking ecosystem has been equipped with various technology-based options that make parking transactions more practical, fast and cashless.

"The various innovations that we present are original works of the nation's children that aim to advance the parking system in Indonesia. We hope that this innovation can also continue to be developed and implemented not only by CenterPark and building management partners, but also other parking operator companies and the government areas that want to improve parking services in their area," concluded Charles.