Luasempit, a Weekend Market Not to be Missed For VM2020
Kuala Linggi gets its own ‘Chatuchak’ weekend market
Bursa Malaysia-listed MERIDIAN Bhd (Meridian), the developer of Malaysia Tourism City (MTC) in Kuala Linggi, Melaka, announced that it intends to turn the tourism city into a tourist shopping haven by hosting the Luasempit weekendmarket@MTC, a Malaysian version of the popular Chatuchak market in Bangkok.
Luasempit weekendmarket@MTC will be an internet-of-things-ready and the biggest weekend market in the world, occupying 100 acres with 40 acres of lake in its premise.
Chief Executive Officer Datuk Seth Yap says the aspiration of MTC is to increase the arrival of tourists and prolong their overnight stay.
“In 2018, the average tourist arrival in Malaysia was 28 million, and 15 million for Melaka of which an average of 1.5 Million stay overnight in Melaka. With MTC, we target to increase another 2 million tourist arrivals and another additional 1.5 Million overnight stay tourists in Melaka thereby creating a multiplier effect on tourist receipt up to an additional RM5bil per annum,” said Yap while sharing some statistics.
Based on a report released by a local English daily in June, Melaka recorded 4.79 million tourist arrivals in the first three months of this year compared to 4.07 million during the same period last year, the increase of 17.49% was very encouraging to Melaka with Chief Minister of Melaka Adly Zahari targeting 20 million tourists this year in conjunction with Visit Melaka Year 2019.
To make MTC a success, Yap says there is a need to “create an economy” within the development itself and Luasempit is the answer to the tourism city’s sustainability.
Currently Meridian is working closely with low-cost carrier AirAsia, the Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents (Matta), and Traveloka to make sure they achieve the 2 million tourist footfall to MTC/Luasempit.
The weekend market, together with the first Hasbro theme park and a branded adventure park, will form the first phase of MTC’s 622.13-acre development based on four pillars: mass tourism, medical tourism, edu-tourism and eco-tourism. The project is planned to be developed over three phases, with the first phase planned for completion within the next three years.
“With the weekend market, we will be offering 3,000 stores of about 100 square feet per outlet. Pricing for each outlet starts from RM2,500 a month. For that amount, you get a physical store with a footfall of 2 million tourists a year and also access to our omni channel of up to 20 online shopping platforms in the region, namely, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam and Philippines, not mentioning with the backend fulfillment provided,” he says.
“The take-up has been encouraging and as of today, we have up to 40% who have registered their interest. But we are not looking to get 3,000 tenants as some will take more than one outlet,” adds Yap.
Yap plans to set up a weekend market and not something that’s available on daily basis to enable merchants working at MTC to spend their weekdays building their businesses elsewhere.
“It’s part of our strategy to build Malaysian entrepreneurs. By having a market that operates only on the weekends, merchants and traders that choose to set up shop at Luasempit don’t have to quit their jobs if they have another source of income during weekdays. Once their business revenue from our market and omni channel is stable, they can then confidently focus their resources on building the business.”
Luasempit is no ordinary weekend market. The 100 acres weekend market is called Luasempit because it has broad (luas) and narrow (sempit) alleys.
The luas alley will consist of 1500 outlets focusing on food and beverage. There are seven luas alleys defined by seven rainbow colours. Each coloured alley consists of food from two different states. As an example, red alley will house Melaka and Penang food, and the blue alley for Sabah and Sarawak food. By putting together food from all 14 states in the luas alley, Meridian hopes that all the tourists visiting MTC can truly enjoy what make Malaysia so wonderful: OUR FOOD!
The sempit alley will consist of another 1500 outlets focusing on made-in-Malaysia arts and crafts. Placing consumer experience as a top priority, the alleys will be air-cooled, ensuring that the temperature does not rise above 26 degrees Celsius. Besides shopping in comfort, consumers would not be seeing repetitive stores selling the similar items. All products sold will be carefully selected and no more than three outlets will be allowed to sell the same products.
MTC’s weekend market will be different from conventional weekend markets as it will have Instagrammable spots, both narrow and broad streets, festival event space, floating market, a Malaysian sakura garden, a bee farm, a bamboo island, and a bird park.
Every week, a top local band will be featured at the designated event hall. Apart from the live concerts, events in the pipeline include My Little Pony Run, hot air balloon shows and Transformers shows.
To boost the experience for its customers, Meridian is working with IPay88offline merchants to offer cashless payments as well as a delivery options. Hefty overweight surcharges will also be a thing of the past. Visitors can shop without a care and have all their purchases made at Luasempit shipped back directly to their home.
For vendors, the weekend market will offer the option of omni-channel commerce. Any inventory listed at the stall will be automatically linked and populated onto an e-commerce store which will open the ASEAN export market for the vendors.
“Our market curators will also assist in sourcing, planning and delivering the stocks and inventory should you need to give your stall an edge. The merchants and traders at MTC will be able to enjoy premium facilities and amenities. We will also provide storage services to the traders. If they bring in goods for their outlets, we can help store them at our warehouse,” says Yap.
As for the MTC, another attraction that will be part of the development’s first phase will be the world’s first Hasbro-themed water theme park. Via the private entity M101 Holdings Sdn Bhd, the company secured a licensing agreement with Hasbro in March 2018. A budget of about RM100mil has been allocated for the park and the company will be capitalising on the Hasbro brand. The water park will be about 20 acres in size and will offer a wide range of branded new rides.
The theme park will feature licensed intellectual properties such as My Little Pony, Nerf and GI Joe and is scheduled to open in 2022. Other popular games linked to Hasbro include Battleship, Play-Doh and Mr Potato Head.
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