The EMEA arm of industry body the ICSC is to rebrand and “spin off” from the US-headquartered main organisation, as it seeks to broaden its scope to attract more retail, F&B and leisure tenants and increase its lobbying influence in Europe, according to executive vice president and managing director Bill Kistler.
International members of the ICSC will remain affiliates of the US organisation but Kistler hopes that relocating from London to Brussels and rebranding the EMEA arm will create a more inclusive and relevant organisation.
“We are still finalising the rebrand, which we hope to announce in January, but it’s fair to say that it will no longer include ‘shopping centres’ in the name,” Kistler told MAPIC News. “We recognise that the future is about creating places and while I still firmly believe that retail remains at the heart and soul of cities, we need to look to how we create great communities.”
Kistler said that in a digitally-influenced world, the new body would look to help the industry in place making and curating destinations that are attractive to visitors and that it would turn its attention away from holding events and towards partnering with other event organisers, such as MAPIC, thought leadership and policy advocacy.
“We have some fantastic meetings within our working groups, which include all the stakeholders, and I would really like to find ways to disseminate that work more widely to our members,” he said. “We need to include the whole industry, because we are all in this together.”
