Santa to meet 25,000 children at Kiwi Property centres

12 December 2018

Santa to meet 25,000 children by Christmas at Kiwi Property shopping centres

Kiwi Property shopping centres have decked their halls and are ready for the fast approaching festive season. At Sylvia Park and LynnMall in Auckland, Centre Place in Hamilton, The Plaza in Palmerston North and Northlands in Christchurch, Christmas is the busiest time of the year, with more than 10 million customers to visit the centres in November and December.

Based off 2017 data and customer research, Kiwi Property’s busiest time for Christmas shopping is anticipated to be the week of 17 December, with 79% of Kiwis having finished their Christmas shopping by the end of that week. To accommodate the increase in customer visits over this period, Kiwi Property shopping centres have added an extra 150 trading hours across their centres, starting from Thursday, 13 December. This includes seven days when Sylvia Park will be open until midnight (Monday, 17 – Sunday, 23 December) and special midnight closing hours at The Plaza and Northlands on Thursday, 20 December.

Kiwi Property GM Retail Linda Trainer says the focus this year is to celebrate all of the different ways Kiwis enjoy Christmas.

“At Kiwi Property shopping centres, we are recognising all the different ways Kiwis celebrate Christmas and the unique activities and traditions that people cherish.

At our shopping centres, the focus is on delivering a great customer experience and we are working on how we can make a visit to our centres as easy and enjoyable as possible. We want to capture the magic and excitement that comes with planning and celebrating Christmas and spread the cheer through all of our centres”.

Santa Claus is already in residence across all five centres. In total he will spend nearly 1,500 hours in centre by the time Christmas Eve comes around. In addition to taking photos with the children, he has a copy of treasured Kiwi author Margaret Mahy’s “A Christmas Tangle” to give away to every child that visits him, and each centre has activities for children to participate in before or after their visit to Santa. Kiwi Property expects close to 25,000 children to visit Santa in the lead up to Christmas.

All Kiwi Property shopping centres are offering gift wrapping for a gold coin donation. All proceeds will go to Kiwi charities and community groups, such as Dementia Auckland, Volunteering Waikato and Rotary Clubs. In 2017, Kiwi Property shopping centres raised more than $80,000 for local community activities, and wrapped more than 35,000 parcels.

Sylvia Park has two more reasons to celebrate this Christmas, with the addition of 600 new car parks. The new car parks will provide Sylvia Park’s customers with convenient access into the ground floor of the centre between Lush and Pascoes, right where Santa is located.

Secondly, Sylvia Park is offering a valet parking service in the lead up to Christmas. Located near the Glassons/Hallensteins entrance, the valet team will park customers’ vehicles for just $10 for three hours and $5 for each additional hour. Valet parking is available from Thursday to Sunday, opening at 10.00am. From 13 December, valet parking will be open every day until Christmas.

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