OVERCOMING CHALLENGES
Elegance of Nanyang, which sells and rents out kebayas, is among the new shops on Smith Street.
Ms Yu Guangning, the boutique’s owner and director, said that while she wants to share the local heritage and the art of kebayas with tourists, she faces several challenges including steep rental costs.
“In this location, definitely (rental) is not going to be low. Subsequently, for us, manpower is a challenge. And you need to keep up to have new products, attract staff, to really attract tourists to come to Chinatown,” she added.
To help heritage business owners like her, the Chinatown Heritage Centre has in place a series of initiatives to appeal to tourists, including marketing efforts with some of these brands.
“For many of these smaller brands, they may not have the resources or focus as much,” said Cai Yinzhou, executive director of the Chinatown Heritage Centre.
“So we hope to do that with our promotional campaigns with some of these brands and shops, where visitors to our centre with a ticket can enjoy discounts and get subsidised products when they visit these shops.”
Another shop on Smith Street, Killiney Kopitiam, is reaping the fruits of the collaboration.
Since its opening in March, the traditional coffee shop has seen a 40 per cent rise in sales.
Mr Henry Oh, general manager of Killiney International, said: “By participating in their programmes, we get the community and the tourists to know that we are actually here.”
