JURONG EAST MALL AGGLOMERATION: THE INFLUENCE ON PATRONAGE

Abstract

The idea of regional centers was introduced by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) under the 1991 Concept Plan aimed at decentralizing commercial activities to the suburbs in Singapore. Jurong East (West region), is one of four areas earmarked to be the regional centers of Singapore. As retail function will be decanted into most of the regional centers, IMM and JCube (the former Jurong Entertainment Center) are built in Jurong East. After the URA’s Draft Master Plan 2008 in which Jurong East is proposed to transform into a booming secondary commercial hub, three new malls – Jem, Westgate and Big Box are added near IMM and JCube by 2013. As there is a lack of studies clarifying the doubt that agglomeration outweighs competition for the patronage of the suburban mall clusters, Jurong East with a larger mall cluster than the only existing one in Tampines is the target location to address the problem. The research aims to examine the kind of impact clustering has on the patronage of the five retail malls in Jurong East and determine the factors which contribute to the impact. The hypothesis of this research is that clustering has a positive impact on the patronage of the five malls in Jurong East. The testing of this hypothesis has included the use of a questionnaire survey handed out in the five malls. The analysis is done using a quantitative approach. The quantitative approach in analyzing the survey responses has involved employing a one-sample t-test. The results from the t-test have shown that all of the statements under the components of Perception and Preference set in the questionnaire have a p-value that is more than the significance level. Hence, the results are statistically insignificant and the research hypothesis is accepted. The Jurong East mall cluster is revealed to have a luring image, huge product supply, broad store variety, and highly connected malls to its shoppers. These are the factors which contribute to the above impact.