Around the Wrold in 3 Days

Industry leaders explore new frontiers in retail development

Sitting in a taxi as it races through the congested streets of Istanbul, Turkey, I am heading for the Conrad Hotel after a mind-numbing 24 hours of travel to attend the ICSC 2005 Retail Real Estate World Summit. As one of the more than 1,000 attending delegates from 57 countries around the world, I was expecting to discover a nation at a crossroads between East and West, evolving from a glorious past to an uncertain yet hopeful future. It took just 15 minutes to find it. When the light turned red, my driver put the shifter on park, swung open his door and meandered through the traffic several cars behind us to help a fellow cabby needing directions. While I looked out the rear window in complete disbelief, I noticed a giant billboard on which a stylish woman lured motorists and pedestrians to a world of fashion delights. We were indeed in the perfect place to host a world retail summit whose theme was "Shopping Centres Make a Difference".
With a population of just over 70 million—half of them under the age of 25—Turkey is a nation in transition.
Addressing summit delegates packed into the Cirigan Palace on opening day (20th April), Turkey’s minister of industry and trade, Ali Coskun, presented his nation as one of the largest economies in the Middle East and Asia, not to mention one of fastest-growing ones in the emerging markets.
Coskun said the government had been working hard to open its doors to foreign investment and to meet the international standards required to enter the European Union, which Turkey hopes to achieve in 2010—there are currently 25 countries in the union, with Bulgaria, Croatia and Romania standing alongside Turkey as candidate countries wanting to join the club.
The road will be long for Turkey, which continues to struggle with a 50-percent inflation rate (it used to be as high as 80 percent). There is also Turkey’s uncertain place on the political landscape, which is rendered even more ambiguous given its geographic position and inner turmoil that makes it seem to the foreign eye like anything but stable—tight security in hotels and shopping malls is hard to miss.
Still, the country has much going for it too, like the economic boost it receives from 20 million visitors each year, which in turn has helped create a buoyant retail development market—regional tourism is growing in and around the Gulf in this post-9/11 world. There is also a desire to encourage more synergy between retail development and community development, a reality to which most visiting summit delegates could relate. And so could the summit’s keynote speakers—Jean Chrétien, former prime minister of Canada; Dr. Bernard Kouchner, co-founder and former president of the Nobel Prize-winning Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders); and H. Lee Scott, the president and CEO of US giant Wal-Mart.
All speakers stressed the importance of rooting any retail development deeply in the community, nurturing ties with local government and agencies, non-profit organizations and, ultimately, with consumers. Delegates got a chance to ponder that once more when a panel took to the stage to discuss current trends and common issues in urban business improvement districts.
Mr. Chrétien and Dr. Kouchner made an appeal to the retail real estate industry to help the planet’s most deprived individuals and nations, particularly in famine and illness-plagued Africa. Dr. Kouchner went as far as to urge delegates not to wait for disasters such as last year’s Tsunami to lend a hand, a pattern which he aptly called the "CNN effect"—incidentally, the £570,000 (840,000 EUR) summit registration fees went to Médecins Sans Frontières, the Int’l Committee for the Red Cross and Oxfam International.
Both Mr. Chrétien and H. Lee Scott also said how important it was to look beyond one’s borders to emerging markets for development opportunities, advice that summit chair Ian Watt later reiterated.
For Scott, Wal-Mart’s success rests not just on price differentials, but on community awareness and a regional outlook for any new development. Among some choice emerging markets were India and China, which together count more than two billion people and where development continues to grow.
The Summit, whose welcoming reception was held at the Grand Bazaar—the oldest enclosed shopping centre in the world, was also the host for 30th ICSC European Conference, the 18th ICSC Asia Pacific Conference, the ninth Turkish Council of Shopping Centres and Retailers forum and the 11th Middle East Council of Shopping Centres meeting.
The gathering concluded on a high note on 22nd April, as the winners of this year’s ICSC European Shopping Centre Awards and ICSC Solal Marketing Awards were presented during an elegant dinner reception (see next page for a list of winners).
Before beginning my journey back home to Canada, I once again walked along the shore of the Bosphorus strait, which divides the city of Istanbul between Europe and Asia. The streets were full of light-hearted citizens and smiling travellers that day, as the country celebrated its annual Children’s Day.
That tradition, meshed with memories of breathtaking mosques, upscale mall developments, colourful bazaar kiosks and intermingling foreign tongues made it clear that we are all exploring new frontiers around the world—in society, politics and retail.