Chester Outlets is celebrating Festival Park’s most successful trading year since the centre opened in 1997, with 150 new jobs also being created there since 2009. All the more remarkable is that this has been achieved during the deepest recession and poorest retail environment in decades.
Thirty eight new leases have been brokered by Chester Outlets with new stores including Costa Coffee, Bench, Beauty Outlet, Poundland Outlet, Jacques Vert and Autonomy, which all opened last year.
The new leisure attractions of the Welsh Dragon adventure fort and the Longest Supertubing run in the UK were added several years ago and have helped shape Festival Park into a destination for the region. A revived marketing strategy for Festival Park has included a new branding look, new website, enhanced events programme and a marketing drive targeting potential customers who had not visited for some considerable time.
During 2013/2014, over 1.7 million visitors passed through the centre, which is a 5% increase since the previous year.
Chester Outlets Director, Ian Sanderson who also developed and runs the 45 acre Springfields Outlet Shopping and Festival Gardens in Lincolnshire said: “We are pleased with these latest figures, which represent another major milestone and show that the investment and hard work to deliver an excellent customer experience is working. We have refurbished and rebranded the centre as well as redeveloped the parklands and there is much more that can be achieved at Festival Park. “