Jamie Oliver chain opens in Bangkok

Jamie Oliver's Italian restaurant has opened in Bangkok. (Photo courtesy of Siam Piwat)

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Jamie's Italian restaurant has opened in Bangkok.

The restaurant at Siam Discovery is the first to open under a joint venture between Siam Piwat Co and Hotel Properties Ltd, a Singaporean hospitality company that holds the franchise to the restaurant chain owned by British celebrity chef Jamie Oliver.

The partnership is part of Siam Piwat's business strategy to expand its own food and beverage business to drive sales in the long term. Siam Piwat is the operator of Siam Discovery and Siam Center.

Both sides signed an agreement to operate Jamie's Italian restaurants late last year.

Prior to this, Siam Piwat has operated its own multi-fashion store for several years, supporting its policy to increase income via new business channels apart from running shopping malls.

Moreover, the company is focusing on earning additional income from more business activities related to food, fashion and innovative products. This will make its complexes not only shopping destinations, but also venues for various experiences that can respond to dynamic customer demand and fierce retail competition.

"Jamie's Italian is a casual dining restaurant, which will become a new business pillar to boost our long-term growth," said Chanisa Kaewruen, deputy managing director for marketing events and business relations at Siam Piwat Co.

She said consumer spending has generally returned to normal since the end of last year. About 40% of customers visiting its stores are foreign tourists, up from 30% last year. Of the total foreign tourists, 60% are Chinese shoppers.

According to the company's survey on Chinese tourists, they want something new and exciting when visiting Thailand.

Therefore, the company introduced a revamped look for over 40 top brand shops at its three retail centres this year.

Gourmet Garden, which brings together over 30 renowned restaurants, opened this year at the Siam Paragon shopping complex.

Moreover, Siam Center introduced Lush, a UK top organic cosmetics brand, opening its first branch in Thailand and being one of the world's biggest stores.

In addition, the company will allocate 1.2 billion baht for marketing three shopping complexes this year.

Yesterday, Siam Piwat announced it will invest 50 million baht to arrange its Chinese New Year campaign at Siam Paragon, Siam Center and Siam Discovery from Jan 26-Mar 12.

The company forecasts over 200,000 shoppers per day to visit its three shopping centres during this period, with sales expected to increase by 15-20%.