Geo of Recreation and Leisure

Recreational Opportunities

The Eaton's Centre offers several varieties of recreational activities. While it can be difficult to establish a category for every store and activity to fit into that is available in the Eaton's Centre, Appendix A, Figure 1 offers a chart which helps to easily categorize the majority of the outlets throughout the mall. The chart consists of three main categories: shopping, services, and leisure.

Shopping

With almost any mall the primary purpose that people travel to them is to purchase different items. For this reason the "Shopping" category in Appendix A, Figure 1 is broken down into five subcategories to easily establish the differences between the products customers can purchase when at the Eaton's Centre.

The first subcategory of fashion is usually the most prominent in the mind of mall visitors. Malls always seem to be the destination of choice when people need new clothes or are looking for the latest trends in fashion. For many customers a trip to the mall is often a full day event. They spend hours on end walking in and out of different stores. All that walking helps to build an appetite, which is why the second subcategory for shopping is food. The Eaton's Centre features several sit down and fast food restaurants. After fashion, one of the most popular products consumers go to the mall for is electronics. The mall offers a unique opportunity to compare products and prices among competing companies all in a walking distance of one another. Another subcategory which may not be as prominent as others is hygiene and nutrition stores. These stores usually have a loyal following as customers tend to find a product they like and will repurchase it from the same store when they run out. The final subcategory of shopping is "Other", it is intended to include stores which feature other less prominent products for people travelling to a mall. This category includes expensive stores which customers likely enjoy to visit but rarely make purchases at.

Services

The second major category of recreational activities in the Eaton's Centre is "Services". Just because the customer may not leave the mall with an actual physical product, it does not mean that they have not spent money on some form of recreation. Some may enjoy the process of getting pictures developed and deciding what pictures they like while laughing and reminiscing about these memories. Others may travel to the mall to plan their next family vacation at a Travel Centre. The Eaton's Centre offers these choices to all consumers that travel to their mall.

Leisure

The final category is the only category that offers sites and opportunities in the Eaton's Centre that do not require the consumer to spend money. "Leisure"