The coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak has already impacted Turkey’s 434 shopping centres like a “tsunami” and they may not weather the fallout from a possible second wave of the pandemic, Murat Izci, head of KDM Shopping Malls Leasing and Management Consulting, has told daily Cumhuriyet.

“It has been like a tsunami [for the shopping centres] and we are still assessing the damage. Retailers are not very keen on opening stores in the malls. They are all pessimistic and only trying to keep what they have for the moment,” Izci said. 

Frazzled retailers could not predict the future with any confidence at all, he said, adding that one retailer, who had opened 50 outlets to date, closed 30 stores this year.

Shopping mall managements were still reducing rents for retailers and in many malls rents were linked to revenues, he added.

Sales at 70% of pre-pandemic level

Sales volumes at the shopping centres were at a little above 70% of the pre-pandemic level, and if a second wave of the outbreak was to hit the industry it would most probably not be able to recover, according to Izci.

He also pointed out that some 10% to 15% of revenues of retailers in shopping centres in Turkey was derived from foreign tourists “but [amid the pandemic] foreign tourist arrivals almost dried up”.

Turkey was banking on big influxes of international tourists in August to make up for truly wretched numbers in the four previous months, but the figures are not yet in to show whether a tourist boom eventuated in any shape or form.

Some $58bn has been invested in Turkey’s shopping centres located across 65 provinces. The malls provide jobs to 520,000 people, according to Izci.