WESTERN SUBURBAN SHOPPING CENTRES : A STUDY OF PATRONAGE

Abstract

One of the key decisions facing the shoppers today is where to shop. This decision involves a dual choice of shopping area, that is downtown or suburban shopping centre, as well as the specific store to shop. One of the most popular Spatial Interaction Models was proposed by David L. Huff who used the basic gravitational notion that the drawing power exercised on a shopper in an area by a shopping centre at a particular location is directly proportional to the size of the shopping centre and inversely proportional to the shopper's distance from the shopping centre. This model depends strongly on a knowledge of the relationship between activity location and the travel behaviour of the users of such activities. With the growth of suburban shopping centres, planners and retail managers in other countries have been increasingly utilising Spatial Interaction Model to predict retail trade areas and shoppers' retail patronage decisions. It has not only been used to explain the structure and functioning of urban areas and also a means of obtaining numerical results to specific problems of urban development. To test the validity of the usefulness of the Huff probabilistic model in Singapore, it is applied to the western suburban shopping centres. The results revealed that the model produces satisfying conclusion in the context of Singapore, that is shoppers' decision to patronise a particular suburban shopping centre is affected by its size and distance.