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Hong Kong retailers ready for holidays
香港零售商開始營造節日氣氛
Hong Kong's retailers are also heralding the start of the holiday shopping season by pulling out all the stops.
Animated reindeers and pine trees and even simulated snow. Yuletide couldn't get any more festive here at The Landmark-home to some of the world's swankiest luxury retailers.
There's no holding back as Hong Kong's retailers try to reverse a recent decline in citywide retail sales growth. In September, sales ground to their slowest pace this year.
But prospects for a profitable holiday season look good, based on a survey of so-called "purchase intentions" by Media Atlas Hong Kong.
And probably one of the hottest items this Christmas season is going to come in a box like this. Guess what it is. It's a smartphone. Purchase intentions for digital cameras and gadgetry, including tablets, are seeing a big jump for all income and age groups.
The same survey also shows purchase intentions for watches and jewellery, leather goods and footwear have remained relatively stable, or have declined. Despite that, overall consumer demand here looks encouraging.
"The figures are looking good and strong, so whatever we're expecting to happen during Christmas will also take place in the upcoming Chinese New Year whereas we all know, Christmas and New Year are actually literally just one month apart, so basically we do expect consumption confidence to carry on," Clare Lui, Executive Director of IPSOS Hong Kong, says.
A stone's throw away from the malls, Hong Kong's entrepreneurs are getting in the holiday spirit, too.
Spanish restaurant Taverna del Mar says more and more people have been booking for private parties as Christmas nears.
And after a year and-a-half in business, the restaurant is hoping to break-even before the New Year -says assistant manager Dennis Chung.
"August month has been slow, but Christmas we've had different strategies to attract customers, like group bookings, parties. We're trying to arrange for people to pick their own menu, and we can devise menus to suit their budget," Dennis Chung, Assistant Manager of Taverna Del Mar, says.
Most department stores plan to stay open an hour later, until 11 in the evening starting in December, to give people more time to do their Christmas shopping.
A lot of shopping would make this holiday especially festive for Hong Kong's retailers.
