SATISFACTION LEVEL TOWARDS MARKETS AND HAWKER CENTRES UPGRADING (HUP)

Abstract

Hawkers had existed in Singapore since the early days of colonisation. With the development of Singapore, Singaporean's standard of living has increase and requirement of cleanliness and hygiene has differed from early 70's. Thus, markets and hawker centres have to upgrade so as to keep up with the environment and also the expectation of Singaporean. In 19 February 2001 (The Straits Times), Minister for the Environment Lim Swee Say announced that the Government were spend $420 million to overhaul Singapore's hawker centres. This is to preserve the unique characteristics of each hawker centres. This study assesses stallholders' and customers' satisfaction of upgraded markets and hawker centres, and also their expectation towards the future upgrading. The results found that majority of respondents were satisfied with the upgrading programme and the upgraded items. But customers were concern of the increase of the price and this were altered their marketing habits. Thus, most stallholders absorbed the rental increase as to retain customers. In addition, younger generation were more likely to purchase goods from Internet. Stallholders were negative with the idea of providing service through Internet.