Take A Vacation — And Shop
Shopping with value, lifestyle and experiences in mind is a part of today’s busy vacation. Here are the recent trends in shopping/tourism.
Rosemary Rice McCormick

South Coast Plaza in Orange County, California, brands itself as “The Ultimate Shopping Resort.”

Shopping and dining continue to be the top tourism activities of all U.S. travelers. While almost all travelers shop, there is a growing trend for shopping to be the primary trip purpose, according to data monitored by the Shop America Alliance. In 2004, Shop America Tours sold over 2,000 shopping tour packages, including Shop & Play, Shop & Shuttle, Shop & Beauty and Shop & Dine to major shopping centers in Las Vegas, Phoenix and Denver.

“We are excited about the sales of the Shop America Tours through partners including Expedia and Southwest Vacations, and look forward to welcoming more shoppers to Las Vegas,” says Art Jimenez, sales executive for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

South Coast Plaza is more than a mall — it’s a travel destination.

• Value — People are placing a premium on value. Use of the Internet for travel research and booking has created smarter and better informed consumers, with more access to choices. Rasulo explains, “Choice is not always about cost only, but about the value of the overall experience. People will pay more for an extraordinary vacation experience. Disney’s strategy is to reward guests with a ‘memory making’ experience that they can’t get elsewhere.”

• Mega-value — Shopping in the U.S. is like one huge outlet mall or half-price sale to value-savvy Brits, due to the strength of the pound versus the dollar. Some Brits save enough on their shopping to pay for the cost of their airfare and hotel. The United Kingdom is the Number 1 inbound overseas market to the U.S. and the primary destinations are New York, Florida, Las Vegas and California. Chelsea Premium Outlets is actively marketing to the lucrative U.K. market.

More than 30 percent of South Coast Plaza’s $1.1 billion in annual sales comes from tourism.

• Experiences — People want experiences, not products, and are willing to pay a premium for the desired experience. Example: the Starbucks experience. Disney’s portfolio includes 11 theme parks, seven Disney vacation club resorts (with 85,000 members), a cruise line, water parks and sports entertainment. Rasulo presented positioning for Disney Resorts marketing under one brand: “Magical Vacation Experiences the whole family can enjoy.”  Keys to success include  identifying the unique experience and then place that experience front and center.

Leading the trend in experiential tourism is Geo-tourism (not be confused with Eco-tourism), a growing U.S. and international trend tracked by Smithsonian Magazine and National Geographic Traveler. Geo-tourism is tourism that reflects or enhances the geographic character of a place. The focus is on environment, heritage, culture, aesthetics and contributing to the well being of local residents. Elements of a positive geo-tourism experience include the local flora and fauna, history, archeology, cuisine, local culture, arts and crafts. Geo-tourism savvy readers of National Geographic Traveler rated Vermont, Quebec City and Old Town Charleston (South Carolina) among their top U.S. destinations, followed by Cape Cod and California Wine Country. Geo-tourism offers business opportunities for retailers, artisans, chefs and crafts persons to capture and market the unique sense of place.

Bulgari and Louis Vuitton are two of the upscale tenants at South Coast Plaza.

South Coast Plaza — A Landmark
Location

It looks like an upscale mall, boasting five major department stores, a host of luxury boutiques, concierge service and even a mini museum. But executives think Orange County’s South Coast Plaza is more than a mall — it’s “The Ultimate Shopping Resort.”  The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office recently approved the trademark, making the 128-acre shopping center the only in the nation entitled to use that designation.

“If you look at the travel destination we’ve become, we’re more than just a mall,” says Werner Escher, South Coast Plaza’s executive director of international and domestic markets. “Without being arrogant or elite, we really feel that ‘shopping resort’ defines the difference between us and others.”

While marquee signs won’t be altered, the new slogan has already been rolled out and used in tourism-related advertising. Escher came up with the idea in part because of store research and other data that pointed to the higher demographic who shopped at the complex.

South Coast Plaza, which contains a satellite gallery run by the Orange County Museum of Art, earns over $1.1 billion in annual sales, making it one of the largest revenue generators among U.S. shopping centers. Over 30 percent of sales at South Coast Plaza are estimated to come from tourism.

Peddler’s Village — Family Friendly Resort

Peddler’s Village in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, is a family-oriented shopping destination that opened in 1962. The center is still family owned and operated.

Extensive regional tourism marketing is combined with a busy lineup of free special events and seasonal festivals to draw nearly 3 million visitors to Peddler’s Village annually. The complex has become a sought-after site for weddings, holiday parties, reunions, retirement parties, picnics and corporate meetings.

The Cock ‘n Bull has served as the flagship restaurant at the center for more than four decades, offering hearty American fare in rooms richly decorated with Colonial-style embellishments, and with the Jamison Family’s private collection of fine art and antiques adorning the walls. Patrons love the traditional favorites such as Country Chicken Pot Pie and Beef Burgundy. Additional highlights include the weekly Peddler’s Village Dinner Theater held Friday and Saturday evenings in Peddler’s Pub, and the bountiful Sunday Country Brunch at the Cock ‘n Bull Restaurant, which has been featured on the Food Network.

Peddler’s Village is home to 70 specialty shops, six restaurants, a luxurious 70-room inn and a family entertainment center with an antique carousel.

Peddler’s Village is still family owned and operated with exceptional pride and attention to detail.

Shopper Travelers Are
Culture Vultures

Upscale shoppers and resorters want to absorb culture, heritage and geo-tourism as part of their travel experience. Typical of baby boomers, they want it all in one nice, neat package, but with choices to make it personalized. This will fuel further incorporation of cultural and heritage tourism with shopping tourism. New research conducted by Taubman Centers and the U.S. Department of Commerce/Office of Travel and Tourism Industries examining the correlation between “cultural tourism” and shopping among international travelers to the U.S. concludes that people who love to travel also love to shop.

“They also love to explore historic homes, catch the latest Broadway musical or hike through a forest of towering redwood trees when visiting the United States,” says Karen Mac Donald, Taubman’s director of communications. “In short, while shopping is the Number 1 activity for international travelers, these wanderers of the world want to give more than their credit cards a workout. They want to expand their minds by delving into the culture and ethnicity of the place they are visiting.”

The complete Taubman study along with spending habits of this Shopping Cultural Traveler will be presented this month at the Shop America Tourism Conference.

What turns an ordinary shopper into a cultural shopper? The study shows they are far more likely to carve out time for art galleries, museums, concerts, cultural or historic sites, or national parks, as well as shop. Cultural shoppers tend to visit more destinations while within the U.S., stay longer, and are more likely to be leisure travelers.

What’s next? The merging shopping and tourism experiences will be even more pronounced in the future. To increase retail profits and length of stay, shopping attractions will offer consumers “one stop shopping” in user-friendly and culture enriched resort environments.

The expansion of NorthPark Center in Dallas will include more upscale shopping, creating a South Coast Plaza-like destination resort in the heart of Texas. DestiNY USA, the mega-tourism development planned for Syracuse, New York, is poised to redefine tourism destinations as we know them today with an exceptional new level of experiential marketing. The top dollars paid by General Growth Properties in acquiring the Rouse portfolio and Simon’s purchase of Chelsea underscore the added value of these established tourism focused shopping attractions. The continued growth of global tourism will be an ongoing asset to any shopping attraction that caters to and markets effectively to tourists.

Rosemary Rice McCormick is the president of McCormick Marketing, a Napa, California, marketing consulting firm specializing in retail and tourism. She also serves as president of the Shop America Alliance, representing the best shopping tourism destinations in North America. She can be reached via e-mail at MMinNapa@aol.com.