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‘MASS’ MERCHANDISING BRINGS SHOPPERS IN ON SUNDAYS

By María Bird Picó

At many malls in Latin America, going shopping on Sundays need not preclude going to church.

An increasing number of landlords are providing venues inside their shopping centers for church services on Sundays and other days of the week too.

Mass is a daily staple at Centro Comercial Galerías, in San Salvador, El Salvador. In July Jardín Plaza Shopping, in Cali, Colombia, started to offer mass on Sundays at one of its anchor stores, Home Center. In Asunción, Paraguay, Shopping del Sol is gearing up to offer mass for its customers (the mall already has a small chapel for employees), and Minka, in Lima, Peru, plans to build a chapel for shoppers.

“Hosting a religious service in a mall is an excellent idea,” said Rafael Zavala, a shopping center consultant and the executive director of the trade group Asociación de Centros Comerciales y de Entretenimiento del Perú. “Besides complementing the city-within-the-city concept, this service warms up the image of a shopping center.”

The number of Catholics in Latin America has fallen, though it remains strong. About 70 percent of South Americans — down from 80 percent a decade ago — consider themselves Catholic, though only 40 percent say they practice their faith, according to a 2005 survey by Chilean polling firm Latinobarómetro.

Tradition calls for families to attend mass on Sunday morning. When they do so at a mall, they stay to dine, play and shop throughout the day, which is great for malls looking to push up their sales on that day.

All of Multiplan Group’s shopping centers in Brazil have an ecumenical center where people of all faiths can pray, says Jackeline Lopes, the firm’s marketing manager. “It is part of our business to bring the customer’s home environment to the shopping center,” Lopes said.

The chapel at Centro Comercial Galerías is next to the food court and offers mass from Monday through Saturday, twice a day. (There is no mass on Sunday because the priest is unavailable.) The chapel accommodates 300 people, and most days as many as 225 attend each service. This is offered as a community service, not as a retail strategy, says Claudia Campos, general manager of El Salvador-based Inversiones Simco, which owns the mall. The space is rent-free, but the mass services are paid for and organized by an independent group of Catholics, she says.

Plaza San Miguel, in Lima, Peru, owned by Catholic University, also plans to build a chapel. In the meantime, the shopping center holds a monthly ceremony in front of a statue of the Virgin Mary, says general manager Magaly Capurro.

Not every mall executive believes in mixing religion and retail, however. “Religion as a subject is very delicate, and we would never offer mass at our malls,” said Ricardo Díaz, president of MultiProyectos, which owns five malls in Guatemala. “Catholics comprise probably about 60 percent of our population, but many others belong to other religions. We are very respectful of their beliefs.”

The eclectic religious beliefs of its visitors is the reason Jardín Plaza Shopping offers mass inside an anchor space and not in the food court, mall executives say.

But the number of Catholics is still significant enough for certain mall developers to consider meeting their needs. El Salvador-based Grupo Roble, for one, plans to build a chapel as part of its ambitious mixed-use project, Multiplaza San Salvador, now under way in the country’s capital.