46pc sales slump at Pacific Place, says tenant of upmarket mall
Boss of lingerie brand blames Occupy protesters for disrupting shoppers; overall figures edge up
Retail sales value at the Pacific Place mall, located next to the Occupy Central site in Admiralty, dropped 46 per cent in October compared to the same period a year earlier, according to a tenant who received information from the mall's management.
This came as the Census and Statistics Department announced yesterday that the city's retail sales value in October rose 1.4 per cent year-on-year, despite a previous warning from the Retail Management Association that there might be no growth in retail sales for the month.
"Mall sales at Pacific Place were down 46 per cent year-on-year," said Chiara Scaglia, Asia-Pacific managing director of La Perla, an Italian lingerie brand, which opened a store in the upscale mall in July.
"In my opinion, it's because the [Occupy] protests … created a lot of traffic jams, which made access inconvenient rather than impossible."
A spokeswoman for Swire Properties, owner of the mall, refused to confirm the tenant's remarks but admitted "there has been an impact on our business at Pacific Place".
She also said that the impact on sales volume varied from market to market, with high-end luxury products targeting tourism tending to experience a bigger impact.