Natsamon Vongkittipat, assistant chief marketing officer for Siam Paragon and The Emporium, announces the two shopping complexes’ largest-ever joint promotion campaign.

Siam Paragon and The Emporium shopping complexes, in cooperation with the Lexus Group, Thai Airways International (THAI) and Samitivej Hospital, announced yesterday its largest-ever marketing campaign to stimulate spending in the fourth quarter amid economic uncertainty.

"We'll also launch a new marketing campaign in alliance with a credit-card company in November, to attract foreign travellers. Our target is to increase the number of foreign shoppers by 20 per cent," said Natsamon Vongkittipat, assistant chief marketing officer for both complexes.

She said Siam Paragon now attracted about 70,000 shoppers on weekdays and up to 150,000 on weekends. About 40 per cent of visitors to Siam Paragon were foreign tourists, mainly from South Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong. The campaign is designed specifically to attract Japanese and Singaporean shoppers, who tend to spend the highest amount per purchase.

"The Emporium has also joined with the Japanese Association in Thailand, which has more than 5,000 Japanese members, on a joint marketing campaign to boost the number of Japanese shoppers to the shopping complex," said Natsamon.

The department stores are offering 10-per-cent discount cards to those flying in first and business classes of THAI and 5-per-cent discount cards to economy-class travellers.

The complexes' cardholders are also entitled to discounts ranging from 10 to 50-per-cent at Samitivej Hospital for check-ups and other special treatments.

Samitivej Plc managing director and CEO John Lee Koh Shun said the hospital currently had more than 170,000 regular clients, accounting for 630,000 visits annually. Of these regular visitors, 30 per cent (or 51,000 people) are international customers. Samitivej Hospital is the leading healthcare provider to people living in Thailand. Its international list of clients spans more than 170 countries. The Japanese are the largest group, followed by North Americans, Europeans, Southeast Asians, Australians and New Zealanders.

To boost sales in the last quarter, a campaign called "Eye Catcher" is will be held from this Friday to November 19. Shoppers making at least Bt1,000 worth of purchases are entitled to a lucky draw for a Bt3.4-million Lexus SI 250 sport sedan.

Natsamon said the campaign was expected to generate sales of more than Bt1.7 billion during the 38-day period and enable both complexes to reach this year's target, with

combined sales of more than Bt17 billion.

"In the first three quarters, our sales reached Bt12.5 billion, of which Bt5.2 billion came from The Emporium, up 8 per cent from the same period last year. The Emporium achieved total sales of Bt6.5 billion last year," she said.

"We expect a better performance in the fourth quarter, because the political situation has been settled," she said.

She said the company expected The Emporium to achieve total sales of Bt7 billion this year and Siam Paragon another Bt10 billion.

Kwanchai Rungfapaisarn

The Nation