EMERGENGE [EMERGENCE] OF THEMED FOOD COURTS AND ITS EVALUATION

Abstract

The research seeks to find out the attitudes and preferences of consumers towards the growing trend of themed food courts located in shopping malls. It will be able to provide useful insights to food court operators and owners of shopping malls and help in their decision making process. A part of the study was also devoted to the development of the food court business in Singapore thus far. This provides a good background understanding of this business before this recent concept of themed food court evolved. Surveys were next conducted to seek consumers' perspective towards themed food courts. Analysis showed that consumers are marginally in favour (52%) of having a theme and that those who feel that having a theme is important generally will not pay more than $1.50 to dine at a themed food court compared to one which is non-themed. Two factors, quality of food and cleanliness are the most important in affecting consumers' decision to dine at themed food courts. Ambience and interior design, though ranked as the least important factors, gathered considerable scores. On the whole, potential still exists for themed food courts based on the consumers‟ perspective but a lot depends on food court operators‟ ability to balance other aspects of the business.