Enhancing customer shopping experience in malls of emerging countries – the “Mauritius” experience

Purpose – The paper aims to explore the contributing factors impacting on shopping experiences of customers in Mauritius. It also seeks to investigate the relative significance of these factors in predicting the willingness of customers to visit shopping malls of Mauritius. Design/methodology/approach – The paper applies the data reduction technique using exploratory factor analysis on a sample of 600 respondents drawn from 23 shopping malls and shopping centres across Mauritius and condenses a set of 33 mall attributes into a list of six comprehensible dimensions about shopping experience. The multiple regression analysis was also conducted to investigate the importance of the six shopping experience dimensions in influencing the behavioural intentions of customers to visit shopping malls of Mauritius in future. Findings – The factor analysis identified that customers visualise shopping experience as a combination of six factors: “provision of childcare facilities”, “health and wellness events”, “entertaining events”, “sports and games facilities”, “value‐added restaurant facilities” and “shopping events”. The results of the regression analysis have also suggested that the willingness of customers to visit the shopping malls is primarily derived from one significant factor related to “entertainment facilities and events”. Practical implications – Shopping mall managers should cater for more entertainment facilities and events. Mall developers should also focus on improving restaurant facilities by maximizing regular renovation of food courts, integrating international coffee shops and fast food outlets in various shopping malls of Mauritius. Originality/value – The study is still a pioneer work on the factors impacting on shopping experiences in the context of Mauritius which is still a developing nation. Yet, it would serve as a roadmap for mall managers and designers to enhance shopping experience in similar contexts.