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Shopping centres are an indispensable part of Hong Kong people’s lives, with many malls connected to people’s apartment buildings by walkways and footbridges. This brings convenience to shoppers and diners, as well as those who are just looking for a place to hang out with their neighbours and friends.
Hong Kong people’s lifestyle and consumption patterns have evolved over time. To meet the ever-changing needs of the community, shopping centres need to constantly adjust their operating models and incorporate new elements. Recently, Link collaborated on a project with the Centre of Development and Resources for Students (CEDARS) of The University of Hong Kong (HKU), inviting students to submit proposals on how to increase customer footfall at Kai Tin Shopping Centre in Lam Tin district. The project, named Trailblazers, aimed to bring students off campus so they could experience first-hand how a shopping mall is run and what its customers look for. The project also aimed to help student participants acquire essential problem-solving skills and broaden their horizons.
Kate Lam, Director of CEDARS at HKU and the person in charge of the Trailblazers project, said that the alignment between Link’s core values of nurturing talent and giving back to society and HKU’s goal of promoting holistic development made the partnership click almost right away. The purpose of Trailblazers, she said, was to help students prepare for their careers and lead more meaningful lives through experiential learning. “What was even more valuable was that through the project and the opportunities it provided to interact with professional managers at Link, students were able to learn about how shopping centres are run in real life. They were also inspired to think critically and make suggestions about possible improvements.”
Nick and his four teammates, who are all studying social and environmental science, were the winners of this year’s Trailblazers project. Their proposal stood out because it was able to pinpoint the needs of local consumers, which Nick attributed to their familiarity with the underlying facts. “When we planned our proposal, the first thing that came to our minds was to put what we had learned into practice,” he said. “We wanted to apply all the knowledge from our classes about environmental protection and sustainability to the project.”
Yet over the course of the project, they still faced plenty of challenges, one of which was their lack of business and commercial knowledge. Towards the end, they had to seek help from members of Link’s team, who brought Nick and his teammates on a tour of Kai Tin and explained its operation. In addition, Link also arranged an online meeting, during which its managers answered many of the students’ questions and provided data and information to help them formulate their estimate on the project’s return on investment.
Aside from the joy of winning, Nick said that the most valuable part of the experience was that it exposed the team to many things that they could never have learned at school, including lighting design inside the shopping centre, ways to engage the community and attract more young customers, and ways to turn customer footfall into revenue. “After the project, Link’s management team spoke with us and shared their experiences,” said Nick. “It was really eye-opening to hear their perspectives and insights.”
Link has been supporting students of the University of Hong Kong for years, with many of the school’s past and current students among the recipients of the Link University Scholarship. One of them is Fuchsia, who also participated in this year’s project in a team that also included three international students – Vasili and Lisa from Russia and Karin from Japan. Their non-winning proposal included elements such as Christmas-themed flea market, more handicraft retailers and trendy brands, and art exhibitions.
Her team’s biggest miscalculation, according to Fuchsia, was that they failed to consider the predominately elderly population of the Lam Tim community. “We overlooked this important factor in our proposal,” she said. “But even though we didn’t win over the judges, the process of learning and understanding why we lost were ultimately more important.”
Both Vasili and Lisa said that through the project, they were able to learn more about Link’s community-focused shopping centres. “We are new to Hong Kong and not too familiar with the local shopping centre culture,” said Lisa. “The management of Link provided a lot of useful information, including about the behaviour of consumers and their characteristics. If we have another opportunity to participate in a similar project in the future, I believe we can be more organised and do a better job.”
Looking back on this year’s month-long Trailblazers project, Kate from CEDARS called the project a “triple win.” All the participants – the students, CEDARS and Link – gained something valuable from it. In addition, the project inspired creativity among students and allowed them to acquire important problem-solving skills within a professional setting. “The project was well received this year,” said Kate. “We are now thinking about how to expand the scope and run it even more efficiently next year.”
