Stimulation of recreational consumer visits in downtown shopping centers.

The Dutch citizen and the recreational consumer have been analyzed in respectively their behavior in the choice for a recreational activity and the choice for a downtown shopping center. Goal of the research is to improve the attractiveness of downtown shopping centers in the Netherlands for recreational consumers. Nine downtown shopping centers in the Netherlands were included in the research: downtown Eindhoven, Tilburg, Breda, s’Hertogenbosch, Oss, Helmond, Weert, Nijmegen and Arnhem. The results show that people who chose to go for recreational shopping are most likely women older than 55 who do not work or work less than 12 hours per week and who are highly educated. Shopping center attributes like presence of historic buildings, warm colors, size of the shopping center and supply of leisure and catering affect the attractiveness towards certain target groups. Taking into account these effects, the current downtown shopping centers could focus their supply better on target groups best fit according to the attributes of the shopping center. They could also alter certain attributes to attract more visitors from target groups which are currently less well reached.