Shopping Centers in Prague - Research Paper Example

Shopping Centres in Prague Introduction Prague is situated in the centre of Europe; it is the capital and the largest of the Czech Republic and it is home to approximately 1.2 million people. Map Showing Prague’s location within Europe1 An increase in the level of economic development can be clearly seen since the fall of Communism in 1989, this progress can be seen through the growth in the shopping facilities, and hence an increased number of shopping centres can be traced. A shopping centre can be defined as a: ‘multifunctional centre comprising of a hypermarket, variety of small shops, services and leisure activities.’ accordingly shopping centres allow customers to purchase high variety as well as offers them a wide range of services and leisure activities. This project will examine shopping centres in Prague, shopping centres and their characteristics are an important area in the study of settlements. The increase in the GDP has resulted in creating more opulence and people tend to make use of the hypermarkets and the shopping centres. They are also choosy in selecting the shopping centres. This research is aimed at studying the shopping centres in Prague and what are the preferences that the people who use it have. Shopping centres in Prague 10 of the main shopping centres distributed around the city of Prague will be divided into two groups by their location, for the purpose of comparison. The groups are: In-town shopping centres Edge of town shopping centres The following map shows the distribution of Prague’s main shopping centres: Aims This project has the following aims: To find out whether the choice of the shopping centre is influenced by the travel time. To find out whether the location of the shopping centre affects the choice of transport used to travel to it. Hypotheses H1 The frequency of visits will decrease as the travel time increases; consequently a negative correlation is to be expected. In today’s modern world, time is perceived as a precious commodity; accordingly the society is very much concerned with time management. Therefore, it is expected that in order to be as time efficient as possible people avoid visiting shopping centres, which require an extended travelling time. They are more likely to visit frequently the shopping centre, which is easily reachable and accordingly requires a less time consuming travel. H2 Transportation by car is to be expected when travelling to an edge-of-city shopping centre, on the contrary people are more likely to use public transport, bicycle or simply walk when travelling to an in-town shopping centre. Congestion and other traffic problems have made access to in-town shopping centres increasingly difficult, consequently this became a highly time consuming transportation method. Therefore, public transport is the solution, as it is not affected by traffic, thus it is expected to be used along with other methods like foot and bicycle which likewise are not influenced by traffic. Nevertheless, edge-of-city shopping centres are more easily accessible by means of car transportation as they tend to be located in areas where road communication is designed to create comfortable approach, these areas usually do not suffer from high levels of congestion. Moreover, car transportation allows people to carry bulky goods easily, this is of high importance as shopping tends to be one of the main reason for the visit. Methods of data collection A list of all Prague’s main shopping centres was made. This was then divided into in-town and edge-of-city shopping centres. The entire investigation is then based on this assortment. The Annexure-I gives the list of shopping centres. Both the hypothesis needs to be tested with the available number of shopping centres. Since it is difficult to check or study every one of the shopping centres available, it was decided to take two randomly selected shopping centres, one each from either of the groups, for this purpose2. Based on this choice a study will be conducted to adjudge whether the hypothesis works. Once the two shopping centres are selected, then a survey is done to collect information on the preference of the people who are visiting these centres. This is collected in two ways; one that would provide the information on the people’s preference to travelling longer distances and the relationship of the distance or time to the number of times the person visiting the shopping centre3. Second, in order to confirm the second hypothesis, information on the mode of transport and the frequency of visit in addition to the time taken are collected to check out the preference of the people. Based on the results thus obtained, the data is analysed and presented to reach at the conclusion with reference to the hypothesis. Data Collection The above methodology was adopted and two of the shopping centres were selected for the purpose using the random sampling method. This method was chosen as it guarantees that a shopping centre from each category has the same probability of being chosen. Random sampling method: 1) The shopping centres were divided into two groups: in-town and edge-of-city shopping centre. 2) Each shopping centre was given a number, which was written on a separate piece of paper. 3) A piece of paper from each group was randomly chosen. The selected shopping centres are: In-town shopping centre: Novy-Smichov Edge-of-city shopping centre: Metropole Zlicin Information was collected at Novy-Smichov for verifying the first hypothesis and data from both the centres will be used to confirm the second hypothesis. To prove the first hypothesis information pertaining to the travelling time and the number of times people visit is taken. The frequency is measured based on whether the people visit the shopping centre daily, weekly, 2 to 3 times every month and rarely. This classification is matched with the data pertaining to the travelling time. Comparing this information would enable us to understand whether the hypothesis one is right or not. Similarly the mode of transport is taken for both the shopping centres. This is then presented to identify and find out whether the second hypothesis is in line with the practical results. Data has been collected and tabulated in Annexure II and III. Based on the data collected the following presentation is made. Presentation of the data In order to enable treatment of the data mathematically, the information gathered is converted to numeric representation. The various modes of transport, the time taken to reach the shopping centres and the frequency of travel to the shopping centre are all coded using numeric values for easy analysis. The coding pattern is given below: Code Description 1 Read More