Tills jingling all the way in Cape malls

Cape Town – Overcrowded parking lots, snaking queues and a credit hangover are some of the side effects of festive season shopping.

Cape Town’s shopping malls have reported a bumper season. The V&A Waterfront and Canal Walk both experienced an increase in foot traffic over December, although the Waterfront expects their busiest period today.

Waterfront spokeswoman Carla White said: “In 2015 the Waterfront welcomed just over 3.05 million people, the highest number for December on record, and indications are that we will amply meet this figure.

“While it is too soon to assess the final year-on-year figures, we estimate our annual visitor numbers to be roughly on par with 2015, when we received 24 million visitors.”

White added New Year’s Eve was generally their busiest day as they expected between 150000 and 200000 visitors.

Since the MyCiti bus route opened to the Waterfront it had reduced some of the demand for parking.

The Waterfront generally receives 23 percent international visitors, 14 percent from upcountry and Africa, and 63 percent local visitors.

White expects the number of visitors to average about 100000 per day over the festive season.

Canal Walk saw a spike in visitors over the days leading up to Christmas.

“More than 103000 shoppers visited the centre on December 22, 23 and 24.

“We average 1.6 million per month and approximately 2.3 million in December,” said Vanessa Herbst, Canal Walk’s marketing manager.

The number of people increased by 700000 and shops were packed. Before the festive season between 50000 and 70000 shoppers visited Canal Walk per day.

Cape Gate Shopping Centre had 9109 shoppers on Christmas Day and only Pick * Pay and Checkers were open.

They had 885774 shoppers in their store in November.

Now that Christmas is over, foot traffic is likely to decrease, and as the holidays end it will decrease further.

Weekend Argus