the roadside manning plastic swimming pools and chest-high vats of ice water exchange fire with passing teenagers crammed into the back of pick-up trucks. The alcohol-fuelled partying starts around noon each day and goes on well into the early hours of the morning. It all happens to the sound of deafening industrial music from immense amplifiers on the sidewalks.  For retailers, Songkran is like Christmas in April with all the festivities but without the gifts: Thais spend a boatload of money on food and beverages – both for consumption at home and away from it – massive plastic rifles, pools and pool accessories, protective eyewear and clothing and fabulously eye-catching Songkran shirts that are Asia’s interpretation of the Hawaiian shirt.  Retailers also piggyback on the occasion for seasonal promotions on items like air conditioners, fans, barbeques and camping gear. The government’s Economic and Business Forecasting Center projected a 4.5 per cent increase in Songkran spending this year, totalling 134.6 billion Thai baht (US$4 billion). Since it is a time when Thais return home to spend time with their families outside the major cities where they have found employment, the spending tends to be fairly well distributed around the country rather than concentrated purely in the big cities.   Songkran is also a tourist attraction since the water fights are legendary and the partying is non-stop for days. It therefore bumps up tourism spending too. Of course, it’s an environmental nightmare with massive water consumption and a spike in non-recyclable trash. The government is making some attempts to promote consciousness of water conservation during the festival, but these largely fall on deaf ears once the partying gets started.  But water consumption isn’t the only problem. According to a sobering report in The Nation Thailand, Songkran in 2024 produced more than 50,000 tonnes of refuse in Bangkok alone, a 1000-tonne increase from 2023 at a time when government and big businesses tout their environmental credentials with fat (and, alas, partly fictitious) ESG reports.  The report said that most of the refuse “comprised polystyrene containers, plastic debris, glass bottles, and food scraps”. Luckily, many of the huge plastic water guns can be put aside for use next year. That’s Songkran, but what comes after? Of course, the water festival lasts only four or so days, and after that, the summer heat gets its grip again. This is where malls step in: frequently, the shopping mall is the only place where people can go and spend as much time as they want in air-conditioned comfort. Not surprisingly mall operators are alert to the opportunity of pulling in more foot traffic during exceptionally hot weather. There are some prominent examples of getting huge success when they do: most commonly, the principal beneficiaries among the tenants are food and beverage and entertainment. Stay cool while breaking a sweat Across the region, mall operators are touting their properties as community cool hubs. The Philippines largest mall operator, SM Prime, is currently pushing its plethora of indoor sports activities as a way to beat the heat but remain active.  The company has a new banner on its app called Active Hub, which connects users with a calendar of sports events at all of its 87 malls around the country. Sports run the gamut, and include futsal, table tennis and martial arts. SM Prime is staging other special events to keep the summer cool going. Some are offbeat for a mall, such as the pet Olympics that ran at the Mall of Asia on April 20. Meanwhile, Central Pattana, Thailand’s biggest mall developer with 42 regional and superregional malls around the country, is running its ‘Summer Invitation’ campaign with more than a thousand special events in 34 of its properties. The campaign, which runs through late May, is expected to cost about 600 million baht (US$18 million) and increase mall traffic by at least 10 per cent. Japan does it better Last year in Japan, the summer was unusually hot – it was officially the equal second-hottest on record – and for Japanese more used to a temperate climate, it came as a shock to the system. The government had to step in with relief initiatives, and a major part of it was to steer people toward the malls.  Japan’s largest mall operator is Aeon Mall, which has more than 90 shopping centres, and these have become heat refuges. Like SM Prime in the Philippines, Aeon promoted its malls not only as cool refuges but also as places for physical activity, like mall walking.  It staged events like snowfalls and a Shaved Ice Festival by way of reassuring its guests that cool weather would eventually return. Needless to say, the commercial benefit was huge. Specialty store sales during August climbed by almost 12 per cent, and the impact was so large that it showed up not just in the results for that particular quarter but for the year as a whole.  Aeon’s operating revenues rose by 6.3 per cent and operating profit shot up in the double-digits. A material part of the growth was, according to the company, attributable to special events during the summer months that were staged to attract and entertain people when the malls became ‘Cool Share’ spots.   An important feature of many Asian malls is that they are part of mixed-use developments with condominiums, offices and hotels. For condo dwellers who usually have air-conditioning in their residences, or anyone else living in the mall’s trade area with air-conditioning, having an adjacent mall can be a nice way of staying cool without having to pay the electricity bill that comes with it. And get some retail therapy at the same time. Further reading: How GMG plans to win Southeast Asia’s sports retail market