The Mills Corporation pioneered the combination of retail and leisure in the US with large-scale malls, typically about 1.5 million sq ft (139,350 sq m), with up to 40 per cent of the floorspace given over to leisure uses.

It now wants to do the same in Europe. Madrid's Xanadu opened in summer last year and, according to Mills president of operations Jim Napoli, more are in the pipeline.

'Madrid has done exceptionally well and the leisure in particular has been much more successful than we anticipated,' he says. 'That's led us to believe it will work elsewhere in Spain and in other European markets.'

Mills is close to securing a second site in Spain and it is on a shortlist of two for the Mercati Generali site in Rome. It is also in talks with Wilson Bowden and Corus in the UK about developing the million sq ft-plus retail element of the Ravenscraig site south of Glasgow.

So what does a healthy dose of leisure bring to the retail performance of a mall? Napoli looks at it from a financial perspective. 'Leisure doesn't provide us with the same return as retail, so the only reason for building it is it drives pedestrian traffic,' he says.

In the US, each Mills centre typically attract 18 million visitors a year, against an industry average of about 7 million. 'If you make the experience more pleasant, people will come back more often,' he says.

So what leisure formats work best in creating synergy for retailers?

Napoli believes there is no specific formula. Sports attractions work best in some markets, while others respond well to a more child-oriented leisure mix.

However, one brand that has been a consistently strong performer across many of Mills' 18 US malls is Bass Pro Shop, offering between 150,000 sq ft and 200,000 sq ft (13,935 sq m and 18,580 sq m) of space devoted to hunting and fishing goods. 'It is a place for the men to go while their partners are shopping and also it is a place where women know they will be able to find a gift for men,' says Napoli. 'It encourages people to come as a family.'

At your leisure

In Madrid, the main attractions are an indoor ski slope and a Formula 0 children's indoor racing. Napoli says the leisure mix in each scheme is tailored to the local market. He notes that in Europe, where land is at a premium, the leisure attractions may have to be scaled down.

No such limitations apply in Florida, however, where Mills recently opened its most successful scheme to date, Sawgrass Mills. At more than 2 million sq ft (185,800 sq m), the scheme is growing at such a rate it could soon overtake Disney World as the state's most successful attraction.

Anchoring the scheme is a leisure attraction Mills discovered in Mexico, La Ciudad de Los Ninos, or kids' city. This 100,000 sq ft (9,290 sq m) leisure box has a full-sized airliner sticking out of the walls and children buy their entry tickets before sitting in the plane for a 10-minute simulated flight to the children's area.

Once inside, the guests can try a host of activities from making pizza to firefighting. The beauty of it from Mills' point of view is that corporations are paying big money to sponsor the activity zones - the pizza area is Domino's branded, for instance.

Taking gate money and sponsorship together, the venue is on target to turn over US$100 million (£55.3 million) in its first year, Napoli says. The young guests typically spend between four and five hours there, while their parents shop the mall.

For peace of mind, parents and children are issued RFID wristbands. Parents can swipe these at any of the information screens in the mall to find out in an instant what activity their own child is enjoying at that moment.

Clearly, there are lessons for all mall operators that injecting a bit of fun into the shopping experience pays off. Not everyone can afford investment on this scale, but leisure really does pay dividends in increasing footfall and dwell time in malls.

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