MSc Real Estate: Bicester Village 2018

Bicester Village by Mike Patrick

At the end of February the MSc Real Estate students went on the annual field trip to the international shopping destination that is Bicester Village. Bicester Village is one of a number of Chic Outlet Shopping® Villages that are operated and owned by Value Retail. There are now nine 'villages' in Europe and two in China and each is defined by its luxury brands and open-air ‘village’ setting.

The purpose of trip is to highlight the link between business, marketing, branding and real estate. The day started with breakfast which was followed by presentations from the management team and from Miranda Markham, Community Relations Director for Value Retail, which was followed by a lively Q&A session. The MSc students go to Bicester Village each year (read about the 2017 visit here) ...so what's new for 2018? Click on the red links for more information.

Phase 4 of the development has now opened (in October 2017) and includes more 30 new shops and 450 new parking spaces as well as a traffic management system. Bicester Village remains a major tourist destination in the UK and is now the second most visited tourist attraction in the UK. The development of the Bicester Village rail station reflects this - offering a direct route from central London as well as luxury surroundings and uniformed staff. This attention to detail has been crucial to the success of Bicester Village.

The uniform at Bicester Village

Bicester Village places a lot of importance on the use of social media for advertising and promotion and is using it very successfully, particularly Instagram. Take a look...

Instagram - 75.4k followers (compared with 45.1k in March 2017)
Facebook - 233.8k likes (compared with 189k in March 2017)
Weibo - (the Chinese microblogging site which is similar to Twitter) has 45k followers

After breakfast and the presentations the students walked from the John Paul II Centre through Bicester town centre and entered Bicester Village through the new railway station. They had time to take a look at the development and then indulge in some serious retail therapy with a VIP card kindly provided by Bicester Village.

And what of Bicester itself? The town continues to expand with the UK's first eco-town taking shape in NW Bicester. Take a look at the timeline and the development of Elmsbrook and Himley Village.