Wolf Money(Orchard Wow, Orchard Woes(13 suggestions) part 2
Orchard Wow, Orchard Woes part 2
If JB is picking up our mid to lower end spending and Japan is picking up on our higher end spending. Where does that leave us? Below are my suggestions to bring back the buzz to Orchard.
1.) Stop promoting Orchard as a shopping belt
Shopping should only be part of the long list of itinerary of coming to Orchard. I suggest the authorities to incorporate other activities in Orchard. We could have a museum in Orchard. For example, TeamLab museum in Tokyo is very popular with tourists and local. A collaboration with a mall to house a TeamLab museum will attract people to Orchard.
2.) Promote pro-family activities
One idea to attract the family, especially those with kids, to Orchard is to set up the biggest indoor playground with water slides. Kids being kids, will pull their parents to the biggest indoor playground. When you attract the kids, parents will come. When parents come, they spend money in Orchard.
3.) Frictionless shopping
We have a K-shape economy now. People in the top 20% are doing very well financially. People with money want a smooth transition in and out of the country. A GST refund counter can be set up by Singapore Custom in the shopping mall. This will greatly reduce the hassle of doing a GST refund at the airport for foreign tourists. Another way to fast track GST refund is to set up a GST-free shopping area. When the visitors buy any items from the store. It will ship directly to the departure gate at Changi Airport with customers collection using parcel lockers after the immigration checkpoint.
4.) Redefining luxury
Orchard Road could be the place as the centre of ultra-luxury services. Luxury is not only shopping for branded goods. Luxury can be for an experience. For example, can we have a 6 stars hotel in Orchard Road with a small gaming room or a special museum set up by some major luxury brand to showcase their history? We could have Christie’s or Sotheby boutiques where shoppers could walk in to buy a Picasso painting and conduct an auction every weekend. Concierge for private jet services etc. Unique brands should be bought in by mall owners. The pressure on the manager to meet the returns of investors plays a significant reason why we are seeing similar brands across most malls. The chain stores are the ones able to pay for the rental. The cookie cutter brands just don’t fire up the imagination of the shoppers. We can have a similar enclave like 47th Street of NYC where many jewellers and watch retailers operate in Orchard. Far East Plaza is the closest with a thriving second hand watch trade.
5.) Be inclusive for the everyday shoppers
Orchard is known for its 5-star hotel. The pain point of coming to Orchard as a tourist is the expensive room rates. Cheaper rooms draw more tourists on tighter budgets to the area. It sounds contradictory due to my suggestion of having a 6-star hotel with a foreigner-only casino. Orchard Road should be inclusive to draw people from all walks of life. A library in the shopping belt can do more to bring people to the area. Can we have the top floor of all shopping malls to have some sort of experimental retailing since the top floor are the one less popular with retailers and some malls have problems filling up the space? Night classes conducted by NTU or NUS in Orchard for those under utilised space can be considered. A convenient place for all students of night classes to come and help bring crowd to Orchard before and after classes? A nicely done-up coffeeshop along the street of Orchard is one example to make the street more inclusive.
6.) Sports and Concerts
Sporting events can have Orchard as the starting or ending point to bring people to this part of the city. Maybe F1 can have a starting point in Orchard. A concert venue could be built to accommodate performance. Concerts attract crowds and crowds spend money before annd after the concert. Simple logic. The recent Singapore football kit launch at Adidas Brand Centre bought a lot of Singapore football fans to Knightsbridge, is one way how sporting event could be incorporated into the grand scheme of drawing more visitors to Orchard. I was there to have my photo taken with the captain of the Lions, Hariss Harun.
6.)Housing
In order for the retailers to survive the competition. They need the basic demand to sustain their business. HDB could consider building flats close to Orchard. HDB dwellers provide the demand for consumption and services around the area.
7.)Transportation
The lack of an affordable transportation option is a major contributor to a declining footfall in Orchard Road, especially after 11.30pm when the workers and shoppers find it hard to get affordable transport back. We might have night buses, but their frequency is not there. I suggest extending MRT service to 2am during Friday and Saturday. The extended hours provide people working and shoppers to Orchard a convenient way to head home. No more “Cinderella's syndrome” when everyone needs to take the last train before midnight The extended hours allow businesses to extend their operations by a few more hours every week. Cinema can have more midnight screenings with the extended train service. A few hours every weekend help to keep costs in check for retailers.
8.) Image problem
Orchard should ban those shops touting cosmetics products along the street and in the malls. They are a nuisance in my view. Blocking shoppers’ way to sell a product. It does give the street a bad image. You don’t see them in Japan. If it is not good enough for Japan, why should it be good enough for Singapore?
9.) Hawker Food
Bring back Gluttons Square. Good food brings people out. Gluttons Square was a very successful concept previously at Somerset. A revisit of setting up a hawker centre in Orchard could be looked into it more seriously.
10.) Air-conditioning/infrastructures
As global warming continues to cause havoc to many countries, the weather becomes unbearably warm. Tourism in Singapore is mostly weather dependent. One of the reasons why Resort World Sentosa is doing worse off compared to MBS is due to the heat on the island. It is just not as pleasant to be strolling around the theme parks for tourists and people working on the island under the hot sun. Air-conditioning must become an essential component for tourism to work in Singapore as our country doesn’t have four seasons. The heat from the warm weather is all year round. An air-con street on Orchard Road and other major tourist areas exposed to the elements should be a standard feature. If air-conditioning is not feasible, covered walkway along the street should be built.
The moving of human traffic underground has contributed a to a noticeably quieter street. I also feel the streets are too wide. Comfortable for pedestrians, but it has done much to silence the buzz around the street. It is for the city planners to figure out the right balance.
11.) Policy
Beside keeping up the infrastructures in Orchard in peak conditions. Policymakers need to inject liquidity into our local economy. Can the existing CDC vouchers scheme be extended for mall retailers? Maybe having separate CDC vouchers just to cover spending in malls. The CDC voucher can be time limited vouchers good for the month of June and Dec to encourage Singaporeans to stay in the country. The economic leakages to JB will add another problem for retailers and f&b outlets in Singapore. I estimate close to $3.5b to $4b annually will be loss to JB. That is one month of the usual retail spending excluding auto in Singapore. Couple with the quiet months in June and Dec due to school holidays. The retailers have only 9 uninterrupted months or equivalent to do business.
12.) Large format retailing
Keep large-format retailing like departmental stores and hypermart in Orchard. As a tourist to Japan, I like to shop in their departmental stores. The variety of goods is great. It gives the shoppers the urge to spend their money. We seriously can’t expect tourists to shop online when they come to Singapore. With the closing of Metro in Paragon. Takashimaya and Isetan are the only departmental stores left in the area. Departmental stores play an important role in the local retail scene. I wouldn’t condemn their demise just yet. Departmental stores will also need to play their A game in an ever changing consumer environment.
13.) Keep cash as a payment option
Keep cash as an option for payment, especially in Orchard Road. Having cash as a form of payment makes the street more inclusive. We can’t expect everyone traveling to Singapore to have some form of digital payment. Japan has an option for cash payment for almost everything. We are seeing more stores in Singapore refusing to accept hard currency.
Conclusion
With competition from JB due to the opening of RTS, there is no time to waste on endless revamp. It is the software that makes the street alive. Competition for tourist dollars is going to intensify. Osaka is opening a new casino at Osaka Bay in 2030. With superior service, wider tourism offerings and proximity to China and Korea. Osaka casino will have a big advantage over ours. Our tourism offering has to improve, starting with how tourists feel about our shopping street. We can’t compete on price, but we can make up with convenience and good service. Hundred and thousand of jobs are at stake in the tourism sector.
The revamp, if there is any, by the authorities to rejuvenate Orchard has so far, little to show for it. Planting more flowers and beautifying the walkway can only go so far. That kind of initiative wouldn’t suddenly make people want to come to Orchard. I have been to shopping street in other countries with poorer pavement that are filled with people on the streets. The shoppers should have a purpose of going to Orchard. There are many ways to increase the visibility and vibrancy of Orchard. The loss in traffic at Orchard is not totally due to its failure. MBS, in some ways, has been successful in diverting some shoppers’ traffic to their mall.
As tourist dollars face competition from other countries with a favourable exchange rate. Singapore can’t sit on its laurels. I am no expert in this field, I am voicing my suggestions as a concern member of the public. I hope the authorities can curate Orchard into a must-visit destination. Bring back the “SPARKS” Orchard badly needs. Make Orchard Road great again. As usual no malice in my commentary. God Bless. 🙏
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