The economic impact of a mega-multi-mall
1995; Elsevier BV; Volume: 16; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1016/0261-5177(95)00040-u
ISSN1879-3193
Autores Tópico(s)Transportation Planning and Optimization
ResumoCasual observation suggests that a mega-multi-mall, such as West Edmonton Mall (WEM) and the Mall of America, which combines a very large shopping centre with a theme park, can play an important role in generating urban tourism. In the course of a campaign directed at obtaining government subsidies, the developers of WEM claimed it ‘brings nine million tourists per year to Edmonton’ and that ‘Tourists attracted to WEM and Canada Fantasyland spent over $700 million in Edmonton alone last year’. Thus it is important for governments to be able to assess the validity of such claims, and to determine whether such malls really generate substantial externalities. But mega-multi-malls simultaneously service a number of consumer markets, making an assessment more complicated than for most other tourist attractions. Here the approach WEM used to support its claims is described, and then the various methodological issues which arise when trying to obtain valid estimates of the economic impact of an institution such as WEM are discussed. Following this assessment useful supplementary data are identified, the data used by WEM are adjusted to account for clear methodological weaknesses, and the supplementary and revised data are then combined to produce a more reasonable estimate of the true economic impact of WEM.
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