Leisure Venues & Airport Retail

Our success on the shopping centre division has grown out of our ability to recognise and respond to the demands of our clients looking to bring retail and business orientated managers into their teams to operate and drive the value of assets on the ground.

Exposure to the skills involved in managing individual retail assets has led us to identify a strong synergy with the leisure venue and airport retail environments in which we now seek to establish our presence. We feel that diversifying our platform into these areas is a logical progression particularly as we see an enhanced leisure component being integrated into tenant mixes in schemes up and down the UK, the exciting Resort World Birmingham development is one such example.

As the market continues to improve, we are experiencing an increase in demand for commercially astute individuals able to drive income through effective retail strategy, creative marketing initiatives, rigorous cost control and an emphasis on customer service and experience. From our activities in the market, we feel that these types of commercial demands and skills to be found in the modern day Shopping Centre Manager are similar, if not identical, to those encountered by those managing leisure parks, sporting arenas, entertainment venues, conferencing centres, theme parks and the airport retail environment.

Expansion into such areas carries various benefits to our clients and candidates. To current clients, it brings exposure to individuals with a greater diversification of skills. Additionally, as developers seek to enhance the commercial potential of their schemes via an increased leisure offering, those candidates with experience in the leisure and entertainment industries will be more pertinent than ever.

To prospective clients, we can utilise our understanding of the retail environment and the skills necessary to enhance the commercial profitability of an asset. This will enable us to provide individuals to formulate and execute effective retail strategy to increase dwell time, spend per head and, ultimately, profit. To our candidates, diversification of sectors will bring new opportunity to build upon the range of skills acquired in the retail environment, and develop them into new arenas.

Exploitation of these natural parallels will therefore allow Foundation Recruitment to develop our platform as a specialist property recruitment partner without losing our specialist approach to the industries in which we operate as a business. With this expansion in mind, coupled with the growth of our International Mall Management division, 2014 is certainly looking like an exciting year!