Why Shopping Malls Are Winning Again, and What's Driving the Shift

If you've spent time in the retail industry over the past decade, you'll have heard some version of the same narrative: the mall is dying. E-commerce wins. Physical retail loses.

The data disagrees, but only if you look at the right numbers.

The Market Is Not in Crisis. It's Polarised.

US retail vacancy rates reached 5.7% in Q4 2025, according to Cushman & Wakefield's US MarketBeat report. That's near a 20-year low, and well below the pre-pandemic average of roughly 7%. In France, the FACT Bilan 2024 recorded footfall growth of +1.1% for the year, modest, but positive in a market where household consumption fell concurrently.

These are not the metrics of a dying sector. They're the metrics of a sector in transition, one where the gap between performing and underperforming assets is widening fast.

The real story is polarisation. Class A properties in prime metropolitan locations are posting record occupancy and tenant sales. Mid-tier centres, those without a compelling reason to visit, are struggling. The question is: what separates one from the other?

The Cold Zone Problem

Every mall operator knows the feeling: certain corridors, certain floors, certain wings simply don't perform. Visitors arrive, navigate to the anchor tenant or the food court, and leave. Everything in between becomes invisible.

Cold zones aren't just a footfall problem. They're a tenant satisfaction problem, a lease negotiation problem, and increasingly, a strategic liability as fashion's share of French mall revenue continues its structural decline, down from historical highs to 37% in 2024 and falling, while culture, sport, and leisure categories rise to represent nearly 19% of revenue for the top-performing groups.

The ZAN (Zéro Artificialisation Nette) legislation in France has compounded the challenge: new centre openings have halved from historical rates, and operators must maximise the performance of existing assets rather than building their way to growth.

What the Data Says About Leisure Anchors

Properties that have integrated leisure and entertainment as anchors, rather than as afterthoughts, consistently outperform on the metrics that matter. Research across European markets shows properties with meaningful leisure components achieve 25% higher footfall and 22% longer dwell time than comparable centres without them.

The halo effect is equally compelling: venues that have installed experiential play zones report a 22% revenue uplift for surrounding food and beverage tenants. The logic is straightforward, a visitor on a mission stays longer, explores further, and spends across more of the venue.

Gamification, specifically, generates measurable commercial outcomes. Across deployments studied by researchers at leading European business schools, gamified in-venue experiences produced an average 35% increase in customer retention and a 28% increase in average basket size. (The behavioral science behind why this works is examined in detail here.) AI-personalised challenges, where the narrative adapts to the individual visitor profile, drive a 42% increase in purchase frequency.

The Case for Atelier des Lumières

The strongest proof point for narrative-driven immersive experience in a physical venue context is one of the most visited cultural destinations in Paris. It is worth being precise about what it does and does not prove: Atelier des Lumières is a standalone cultural venue, not a mall-integrated attraction. It validates the demand for immersive, content-refreshed experiences and the willingness to pay a premium for them, not, on its own, the in-mall ROI. That mall-specific evidence comes from the leisure-anchor and gamification data above; the Atelier is the demand signal those mechanics are built to capture.

Atelier des Lumières, opened by Culturespaces in April 2018, attracted 1.2 million visitors in its inaugural year, more than double its initial target of 500,000. The venue has since welcomed over 5 million cumulative visitors, with peak years exceeding 1.4 million. Ticket prices sit at €16–18 per adult, a premium positioning in a city full of free cultural alternatives.

What drives repeat visitation? Content refresh. Each exhibition runs 10–12 months before rotating to a new programme. Visitors who came for Van Gogh return for Cézanne. The experience is immersive but the content is the variable that keeps it relevant.

Klépierre's portfolio tells a similar story from the retail side: the European market leader operates with approximately 25% of floor space dedicated to non-retail experiences. Their 2024 annual report: net rental income +6%, retailer sales +4%, occupancy 95.8%. (More recent 2025 full-year figures show occupancy rising toward 97%, the trajectory is upward across both reporting periods.)

The Asset-Light Opportunity

For most mall operators, the barrier to implementing meaningful experiential activation has been the traditional model: a Family Entertainment Centre proposal arrives, quoted at €500,000–€1.5M with an 18-month implementation timeline. Planning permissions, structural surveys, specialist contractors. By the time the attraction opens, the trend it was designed to capitalise on has often moved.

The market has evolved. Asset-light, no-CapEx models now exist that deploy immersive narrative experiences, gamified trails through the venue, reward-linked to outlet visits, in weeks rather than months. The content refreshes weekly or seasonally, keeping the experience novel for repeat visitors. The analytics layer captures what traditional retail never could: real-time path data, dwell time by zone, participation rates, voucher redemption, the evidence base that justifies continued investment and informs tenant mix decisions.

Floor-Case Model Projection: venues deploying gamified immersive experiences have reported basket uplift of +1.9% and extended dwell times of 45–60 minutes per engaged visitor session.

The Bottom Line

The malls winning the next decade are not the ones with the most stores. They're the ones that have understood a simple shift: the visit itself is the product. Fashion is a transaction. An immersive experience is a reason to come back.

US vacancy at near 20-year lows. French footfall growing. Klépierre at 95.8% occupancy (2024 annual report) with roughly 25% of its space dedicated to experiences. The market is giving clear signals.

The question for every asset manager is the same: what is your centre's reason for visit, and is it refreshing often enough to stay relevant? How venues are deploying immersive experiences in weeks, not months →

Sources: Cushman & Wakefield US MarketBeat Q4 2025; FACT Bilan 2024; Cushman & Wakefield France 2025; Klépierre Annual Report 2024; Culturespaces / Blooloop; Allied Market Research FEC 2022–2033; Mordor Intelligence Gamification Market 2025