The recent reported kidnappings are really alarming and they are a hot discussion topic amongst parents. But, other than this, it is true that finding a dream school or a good education centre is still an important issue, together with the problem of finding a way to kill time when our children have classes on our precious Saturday holiday.
It is a fact that there are a lot of education and tutorial centres in Hong Kong, located mainly in commercial buildings. However, it is really hard for us to find an organised commercial centre providing one-stop services for both students and parents, and preferably providing centralised customer services to transfer children to and from different education centres within the same building while parents are enjoying a massage or a facial. It would be perfect if all these services could be provided in a semi-retail commercial building with supervised entry and security guards.
I understand that it’s a logical move for landlords to target tourists with high spending power. However, prime retail space in Hong Kong which is easier to target tourists is limited, accounting for less than a quarter of the total retail stock. And while tourist spending accounts for about one-third of total retail sales in Hong Kong, local spending accounts for the rest!
A closer look at private consumption figures which also give breakdowns of resident and tourist service expenditure in Hong Kong, indicates that the education sector is in fact growing fast, and at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 8.4% over the last two decades, reached HKD 20.7 billion in 2010. Along with the spending growth, we saw increasing leasing deals of playgroup centres, kindergartens and tutorial centres in recent years; furthermore, the market also recorded universities’ schools of continuing study taking up bulk space in office buildings. Meanwhile, the recreation and entertainment market size is quite big too, with private spending amounting to HKD 74.0 billion.
Interestingly enough, while the market size of the education sector in dollar term has been expanding over the years, the actual number of service users has in general declined, implying that parents’ spending on education per child is on the rise.
Source: Census and Statistics Department
Well, maybe my dream of an “edutainment” centre is too much of a fantasy to fully satisfy commercial principles, but I’m sure that the market potential for such a place for local residents is there. In particular, personal services cannot be replaced by online shopping, with money spent on these services translate mostly to commercial floor space demand. Yet spending on products does not since many products can be sold online which do not require commercial space.
More on 'Retail' in 'Hong Kong'
- Hong Kong retail market in need of a breakthroughMay 14, 2024
- “Pawsitive” outlook for Hong Kong pet-friendly retail marketJanuary 30, 2024
- Finding opportunities in Hong Kong’s changing retail landscapeNovember 10, 2023
- Sustainability – the up-and-comer in HK retail trajectoryJuly 14, 2023
- The Hong Kong property market: where to from here?May 5, 2023
