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Terror threat meant fewer customers for shopping centres

07:47 12/01/2016

The 15 major shopping centres in Belgium saw their visitor numbers decrease by 2.7% in the last quarter of 2015, compared to the same period in 2014. "The terror alert clearly played a role," says the Belgium Luxembourg Council of Shopping Centers (BLPR) in a press release, reports Het Laatste Nieuws.

The shopping centres reported more than 24 million visitors in the fourth quarter of 2015, a decrease of 2.7% compared to the last three months of the previous year. They welcomed more than 88.7 million visitors in the entire year, 1.4% less than in 2014.

The shopping centres most affected by the increased terror alert level were Wijnegem Shopping Center (pictured), l'Esplanade in Louvain-la-Neuve and City 2 in Brussels, with the terror threat forcing some of them to close for several days in November.  

Written by Robyn Boyle