- South Coast Plaza is a luxury shopping center in California’s Orange County speckled with recognizable luxury brands like Balenciaga, Chanel, Gucci, and Christian Louboutin.
- There has been a visible decline, however, in visitors amid the coronavirus scare, according to two employee accounts and photos taken on a recent visit on March 5.
- Puzzle Box, a toy store in South Coast Plaza, has had to cut back on the number of employees working on Friday mornings because of the lack of shoppers.
- A South Coast Plaza representative says the mall has been seeing normal traffic with only a slight decrease in Chinese and Italian tourists because of travel restrictions.
- California has declared a state of emergency, and one person in the state has died of COVID-19.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
South Coast Plaza – a luxury shopping center in California’s Orange County speckled with recognizable luxury brands like Balenciaga, Chanel, Gucci, and Christian Louboutin – may be seeing a decline in visitors recently because of the coronavirus scare.
As of now, the COVID-19 outbreak first identified in Wuhan, China, has killed more than 4,000 people and infected more than 116,000. One confirmed coronavirus-related death has taken place in Northern California’s Placer County.
But with coronavirus worries increasing and an official state of emergency declared in California, employees at two South Coast Plaza stores say they have noticed a decrease in visitors.
“With South Coast Plaza, you get a lot of Asian tourists that come in throughout the whole year,” Jason Fish, an employee at the Nordstrom in South Coast Plaza, told Business Insider. “In the summertime, we get a lot of that. I feel like not so much right now.”
The luxury shopping center calls itself a "world-class" shopping destination for international and domestic travelers and has translation programs for some shops, according to its website. It also accepts UnionPay cards, which are commonly used by Asian visitors.
Tourism-related shopping accounts for about 20% of spending by visitors in Orange County, and the family-owned South Coast Plaza is a destination for many of these tourists, according to Location OC. With about 260 shops, it's considered one of the largest shopping centers in the US.
South Coast Plaza has also been nearing $2 billion in annual sales, the spokeswoman Debra Gunn Downing told Business Insider.
"The mall is very slow," Manny Rocha, the manager of the South Coast Plaza toy store Puzzle Zoo, told Business Insider. "Come first thing in the morning when you open the doors, you usually have ... some stragglers, some people walking by. [Now, you] open the doors and it's just like nothing. There is nobody there."
Fish says Nordstrom has been picking up business of late, though it's common for its sales to start increasing in March following the slower post-holiday season during January and February.
Rocha, however, isn't experiencing the same luck.
"We're way off numbers from where we should be this time of year, and a lot of it has to do with" the coronavirus, Rocha continued.
Rocha has had to cut back on staff because of the lack of visitors to his store. Most Fridays, he has two people working in the morning. As of about two weeks ago, he's cut it back to just one person.
"This time of year is slow, so you don't have a very big staff anyway, but again, it's even slower now," Rocha said.
Downing, however, told Business Insider the mall had been seeing normal traffic. Though there was a drop in Chinese and Italian tourists visiting South Coast Plaza because of travel restrictions, Downing said the drop has been offset by "local domestic and other international shoppers."
"Although we are an international luxury shopping destination, our core audience is from a 100-mile range," Downing said. "Every store has its own experience and does not reflect the center as a whole."
Fish says the COVID-19 scare can be attributed in part to social media.
A rumor that spread through social-media sites in January claimed a coronavirus-positive woman had visited South Coast Plaza during the Lunar New Year.
The OC Health Care Agency declined to comment when asked by Business Insider about the potential COVID-19 exposure at South Coast Plaza, but the shopping center says on its website that the HCA has confirmed the person with COVID-19 did not, in fact, visit the South Coast Plaza.
"I think with the virus it has definitely concerned a lot of people, and they've chosen to kind of stay away," Fish said.
There was a spike in visitors, however, following a promotion that gave shoppers gift certificates when they hit a minimum purchase total between February 12 and February 29.
Buyers who spent at least $2,500 or $1,500 in one day were given $500 or $300 South Coast Plaza gift certificates, respectively.
"We expected the promotion to be successful, but we were surprised at how it was a smash hit, with lines of people stretching down our corridors every day to receive their South Coast Plaza gift certificates," Downing said.
These kinds of promotions, however, normally benefit the luxury brands at the South Coast Plaza, Rocha said.
"I'm one of the little toy store in the mall - nobody comes to spend $1,000 or $1,500 in my store," Rocha said.
South Coast Plaza has started implementing steps in an attempt to keep visitors and employees safe.
South Coast Plaza is now disinfecting commonly touched surfaces, such as handrails, restrooms, and its carousel. It is also providing free face masks and hand sanitizer at its concierges, as well as hand sanitizer stations near every "major" entrance.
Many experts, however, have advised against wearing face masks.
"I think they do what they can, take the necessary precautions," Fish said. "They're doing a great job at trying to keep everyone safe."
