European developer and manager of designer outlets McArthurGlen is to expand its gross leasable area by a record 50%, growing from 600,000sq m today to almost 900,000sq m by 2019. This news makes McArthurGlen, now in its 20th year, the fastest-growing group in the European outlet sector.
McArthurGlen‘s portfolio of centres will rise to 22, with a further seven new centres underway or in planning and due for completion by 2019.
Underpinning McArthurGlen‘s ambitious expansion plan is its financial performance. The group today announced that across its portfolio, total centre turnover grew by almost 30% in the last 3 years to around €3.5bn. Since the beginning of this year, McArthurGlen has driven double-digit growth in both footfall and customer spend across its centres and has grown tourism sales by over 40%.
McArthurGlen‘s Designer Outlets have seen tourism sales quadruple over the last four years between 2010 and 2014. Across the portfolio, the average spend per international customer is more than six times the average spend of local customers, with China as the biggest international customer, accounting for more than a third of all tax-free sales. In 2015 tax free sales figures have grown around 25% year-on-year to date.
