Thailand
Thailand: Mall operators beef up hygiene, safety
Two shopping centre operators, Central Pattana and Rangsit Plaza, are revving up preparations of hygiene and safety measures at complexes to reassure shoppers’ confidence once the malls are allowed to fully reopen.
Wallaya Chirathivat, deputy chief executive of Central Pattana Plc, the operator of Central shopping complexes, said the company has put in place a master plan on hygiene and safety to ensure public confidence, implementing measures at its 32 malls nationwide and all tenant stores.
“We are taking our hygienic standards and preventive measures to a new level which will later set a new retail standard and the ‘new normal’ of social norms,” she said, adding that Central’s hygiene and safety master plan covers five key core ideas with more than 75 measures including extra screening, social distancing, safety tracking, extra cleaning and touchless experience.
The company will also seek cooperation from all tenant partners to follow its master plan, which includes measuring people’s body temperature before entering the shopping centres and wearing face masks at all times.
The company will restrict the number of customers allowed at a time at one person per five square metres.
As for the shops and common areas such as lifts, escalators and bathrooms, 1-2 metres distance is required.
The company will also arrange a queuing system and waiting area for the store and delivery staff.
It will also track employees’ health and travel records and provide a disinfectant spraying service on shopping bags before leaving. Additionally, it will encourage cashless and electronic payments.
“In response to this ‘new normal’ of changing consumer behaviour facing the pandemic, this master plan serves as a guideline for general use in the best interest of the nation to hereafter set a new retail and social norm,” Ms Wallaya said.
Tenants at restaurants, cinemas, fashion stores, food courts, beauty clinics and financial services will also prepare special measures to augment CPN’s measures.
Jittinan Wanglee, managing director of Rangsit Plaza Co, the operator of Future Park Rangsit, said the company is also preparing tighter measures at its complexes than used in the past.
They include increasing ozone in its air treatment system, marking distancing signs in each one square metre on all floors and limiting the number of shoppers as well as arranging a queuing system.
Moreover, the company will help its tenants by partnering with Wongnai, a lifestyle platform, in order to allow restaurant operators at its complex to use the platform as a new channel to deliver food to customers with Future Park subsidising the delivery fee for them from May 1.
Source: https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/1904530/mall-operators-beef-up-hygiene-safety