The Operation of Shopping Mall from Spatial and Temporal Perspective (on the Example of Bonarka City Center in Cracow)

This article considers shopping mall as: a) a place of spatial influence as evidenced by the area customers commonly come from (on a local, regional and country-wide scale), b) a place of customers’ arrivals over time (during different times of the day and week). An example of the Bonarka City Center—a newly opened shopping center located in Cracow—was employed to tackle four significant issues. The research procedure included a field data gathering carried out in February 2010 in the underground parking lot situated beneath the mall major trade area. Each investigator was to note down the number of cars entering the lot, license plates county code and the number of passengers inside. Besides, all of the people were subjectively classified to different age groups. Customers who came on foot or by public transport were not included in the analysis. First, the authors endeavored to determine the size of daily traffic at the shopping center. Secondly, the main directions of customers’ arrivals (crude, controlled for population and per automobile) enabled to delineate the major area people are attracted from by the shopping mall. Thirdly, an analysis over time revealed peaks and trough times over the daily traffic, both diverse during a working day (here: Tuesday) and weekend (here: Saturday). The final issue discussed hereby concerned the customers’ age in relation to the arrival times, which allowed tracing a varying demand over a day.