Philippines retail to get yearly revenue boost from nationwide grand sale

Philippine retail will get a yearly revenue boost from the recently launched nationwide grand sale called “Philippine Shopping Festival,” which is being eyed to become a yearly event.

The Philippine Retailers Association (PRA) and Department of Tourism-Tourism Promotions Board (DOT-TPB) partnered to revive the Philippine Shopping Festival and decided to make it an annual event to make the Philippines a new shopping destination in Asia Pacific region.

PRA Chairman Roberto Claudio said the Philippine Shopping Festival 2015 will put the Philippine retail close to the sophisticated and globally known shopping industry of Singapore and Hong Kong.

In Singapore, there is an eight weeks event called Great Singapore Sale, which usually occurs in the last week of May until the third week of July

An international report showed that shoppers, a mixture of foreigners and locals, had spent a five-year high of US$2.12 billion using their MasterCard cards during the Great Singapore Sale this year.

To be held on October 23 to November 8, the Philippine Shopping Festival will be a two weeks sale where shopping malls and retailers in the country will offer different discounts and promo to entice people, mostly foreign tourists, to shop.

Claudio said that the first attempt of PRA to do something like this happened two to three years ago but it wasn’t that successful.

Now, the group and the DOT are banking on the two big regional events that will happen in the country in November as this year’s major drivers for the festival.

The events that he was talking about are Asia Pacific Retailers Convention and Exhibition (APRCE) and the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meetings which will both bring thousands of foreign delegates.

Claudio emphasized that as per DOT data, each foreign tourist visiting the country allocates a daily shopping expenditure of US$300.

“Just imagine if thousands of foreign delegates will spend US$300 a day just for shopping,” Claudio said.

Around 94 malls will be participating in the nationwide grand sale.