SHOPPING AND BUSINESS CENTRES IN SARAJEVO

Shopping and business centres in Sarajevo In the paper, influence of shopping and business centres: Mercator, Tuš, Obi Robot, Konzum and BBI on development of Sarajevo city is analysed. Results of the survey made among visitors indicate to presence of social functions (walk, leisure, recreation, fun, socialization) in five centres. The mentioned functions are more expressed in new shopping centres, while shopping is the most important motive of visits to commercial centres. Sarajevo city makes, with its surrounding, a functionally connected wholeness – city, respectively an urban region.


Introduction
For needs of this research, secondary sources of data have been used, gathered by utilisation of three basic methods: gathering the data in the field, surveying the citizens and interviewing the employees.The data on type of services in the mentioned shopping and business centres were gathered in the field.Planning and conducting the survey research have given receptive results of the demanding task in spatial distribution of shopping and business centres in Sarajevo, Ilidža, Hrasnica and Vogošća.
Advent of shopping and business centres created as per West countries model is one of (spatially) the most visible characteristics of transition from real-socialist planned economy into market economy system in the countries of Central and Southeast Europe.In addition to commercial-business function, such centres are bearers of other numerous (additional) functions in the countries in which they exist, first of all, of the function of spending free time and leisure (Pacione 2009).
Shopping and business centres of the economically developed countries of market economy, unlike the impression suggested by their names, are not only an element of economic functions of the city, but also an integral part of its social structure (Jakovčić, Spevec, 2004).Diversity of functions of shopping and business centre and its particular inclusion into the sphere of social activities, with permanent presence of marketing messages in media space, affects also on intertwining of motives of visits to such building, which may reflect reversibly not only on economic structure of Sarajevo city, but also on transformation of its traditional social spaces: street, square, market, park, rural settlements (Hallsworth 1994).
That fact, with an obvious increase in number and the area of shopping and business centres in Sarajevo, encouraged the research conducted in commercialbusiness centres: BBI, Mercator, Tuš, Konzum and Obi.Research results show the trends close to those of economically developed countries, in which shopping and business centres have been existed more than half a century (R. Nurković 2010).The centres of Mercator, Robot Tuš and Interex are an area in which visitors satisfy, in addition to function of supply, numerous other needs, mostly the need for social contact and spending free time.It is formed as "pseudo" public space in urban structure of Sarajevo.

Objective and methodology
Objective of this work is to show development of shopping centres on the edges of the city, as well as on the intersections of major city's traffic arteries.Their position, structure and functions have been shown in the paper.This paper aimed at researching a current state of functions of shopping centres on the margins of city and at ascertaining whether any differences exist in development of functions between single centres.The hypothesis, from which the research started, is that in commercial centres on the city edges commercial functions are still primarily developed, while social functions are in the background.
The data on areas of single shopping centres have been gathered by using secondary sources of data from the Economic Council of Sarajevo and the State Agency for Statistics.The data on structure of the particular shopping centres have been collected by observation method and mapping the activities in particular shopping and business centres in Sarajevo, and in settlements of Ilidža, Hadžići and Vogošća, particularly from the aspect of the mentioned additional functions.
In order to obtain the data on functions of the shopping centres, a survey has been conducted and an interview method has also been used.The survey was conducted in the shopping centres of BBI, Mercator, Tuš, Konzum and Obi, in the period from 15 th to 25 th September 2010, when 1.550 visitors were surveyed.For the sake of insuring the representativeness, participants were selected by systematic sample method, by surveying at the entrances/exits from the shopping centres during their visits to the centres.Most of the people surveyed have given a response according to conducted survey in shopping centres.
After 1995, big spatial and functional changes occurred in urban development of Sarajevo.Regardless of position of a particular settlement in specific urban hierarchy, each urban settlement exerts influence on its immediate surroundings.A new type of urban-spatial pattern started to appear in Sarajevo, which distinguishes itself according to its appearance from the recognised hierarchic cities that we have analysed in recent years.We will focus our research primarily on development of urbanisation, and, in addition, to expansion of new shopping centres in the very centre of city and on the edges, on the tendencies of dynamical and diverse housing construction and arrangement of large traffic infrastructure.The mentioned processes strongly affect the contemporary spatial and functional structure of the spatial plan of Sarajevo.
In the place of the former industrial enterprises, smaller workshops and warehouses, new multi-storey business-residential buildings with main offices of the large financial, information, commercial and other firms have been constructed recently (Lorber 2006).New urban development of Sarajevo is connected with other smaller towns into an interconnected urban system where each of them provides separately the services and products for its surroundings, attached region and its hinterland.They are followed by specialized shops (banking services, legal services, big market, diversified labour force, extensive public services, automobile showrooms and furniture shops, as well as computer equipment and alike).New economic activities entered also the former industrial zones and changed their structure.Recently, service activities have been developing intensely.The firms with computer systems help the banks in development of more efficient, computerrun banking system.Tertiary activities have strengthened automotive flows and accelerated urbanization of the city edges.On the other hand, strong pressure of the foreign and domestic investors leads to poor quality and illegal construction (Černe 2003).Tendencies of urban development concentration and construction are followed by permanent increase in number of cars, thus creating serious traffic problems in Sarajevo.

Spatial distribution of Shopping Centres in Sarajevo
Today, shopping and business centres in Sarajevo are developed on locations that have already been marked by pre-war industrialization.Business centres are expanding and occupy new areas.Three types of locations of shopping centres can be separated in Sarajevo: in centre of city, on intersections of main city traffic arteries, and in vicinity of the road junctions on the edges of the city.There are eight shopping centres in the centre of Sarajevo city, while on the intersections of major urban traffic lines and in vicinity of the road junctions there are three shopping centres.On the one hand, we have also a strong concentration of the business centres in several Sarajevo's municipalities.These are: Stari Grad, Centar, Novo Sarajevo, Novi Grad, Ilidža, while existence of the shopping centres in the area of municipalities of Hadžići, Trnovo, Ilijaš and Vogošća is of considerably smaller extent.
There are two concentration zones of the shopping centres in Sarajevo.The first concentration zone is in the city's south part.There are several shopping centres there.Among other, there is a shopping centre "Robot", which is located in Sarajevo's settlement of Hrasno, founded in 2002, and occupies an area of about 12.000 m².In immediate vicinity of that centre there is one more shopping centre, which is also in ownership of the "Robot" group, and is located in Novo Sarajevo on the traffic route in vicinity of the tramway track.It was established in mid-2007 and covers an area of about 14.000 m².We have already mentioned that "Robot" is the first larger shopping centre in Sarajevo, founded in 1999, and since then it has been developing permanently.Today, "Robot" employs 700 workers in Sarajevo, and 600 workers in Bihać.It uses about 55.000 m² of own sales space where a wide selection of food and chemical products is represented, in addition a selection of technical goods, audio and video equipment, dishes and toys, and own warehousing space.In addition to these two shopping centres in Sarajevo, there is also a shopping centre "Robot" on Ciglane, founded in 2000, with sales area of 9.000 m², and a shopping centre "Robot" in Rajlovac, founded in 2004, with sales area of 20.000 m² (Tab. 1 and 2).
Tab. 1: Shopping and business centres in Sarajevo, 2010."Mercator" centre was founded in 2003 and since then it has been in permanent rise.Shopping centre "Mercator" is part of the firm having the same name, which has its sales centres of different capacities and contents in Slovenia, Croatia, and Serbia and in Bosnia and Herzegovina.Total number of employees is over 20.000 people, and the number of employed people in Sarajevo is 1.045."Mercator" centre differs from other shopping centres according to ambient itself.With the space looks, particularly of interior, selection of business contents and promotion activities, it tries to send a message that it may be a place for meeting and socializing, and the shopping becomes a particular experience.
In immediate vicinity of "Mercator" centre in Novo Sarajevo, there is a shopping centre "Konzum" and several supermarkets.Among other, there is also "Interex" centre, which was founded in 1999 and uses the sales area of 1.950 m².Today, "Interex" is present in 19 towns with 21 sales facilities, and in years to come "Interex" is planning further development and doubling the leadership position in the market.It employs 80 workers in Sarajevo, and an average sales area is 2.500 m² (Fig. 1).

Structure of business spaces and fuctions of Shopping Centres
On the peripheral parts of Sarajevo city and on the intersections of more important city's traffic arteries, shopping centres of Mercator, Bingo, Tuš, Konzum, Merkur, Interex and Obi have been constructed, as well as a number of hypermarkets.From the survey that we have done in the field, related to shopping centres, it is seen that one of main characteristics of the shopping centres is existence of the insured parking area.
All shopping centres in Sarajevo have the insured parking areas, but only 'Mercator' and BBI have the insured, covered parking lots.Contrary to these, shopping centres in central parts of the city have the insured, covered multi-storey parking lots.The main reason for this is a lack of free space.All shopping centres are characterised by poor adjustments to disabled persons, which can be reduced to existence of several parking places for shopping.
All three shopping centres possess a hypermarket of area over 2500 m 2 , in which the goods are sold according to self-service principle.Number of premises per single shopping centre is significantly different.So, in 'Mercator' shopping centre, in addition to hypermarket there are 12 premises of different shopping and service functions.In other shopping centres, their number is considerably smaller: 3 premises in shopping centre of 'Interex' and 4 premises in shopping centre of 'Robot'.
There are two basic functions of shopping centres: commercial and social functions.
The centres in Europe and North America increasingly offer all what customer needs in one place.With such business policy the centre attracts the customer, and the customer saves the time.However, in order to enable implementation of such business policy, it is necessary for the shopping centre to possess all functions and all types of services developed.
The observed three shopping centres still do not make such form of shopping possible.From the data obtained by the mapping in the field, it is noticeable that even 50% of total number of premises is intended for retail trade.Data between the single centres considerably differ and range from 50% in shopping centre Mercator, to 60% in shopping centre Robot, Konzum and BBI.However, during analysis of particular shopping centres, taking into consideration only the structure of business spaces of the shopping centres according to number of facilities of certain purpose, may lead to wrong conclusions.Namely, if instead of the number of premises, a structure of shopping centres according to area of business spaces is observed, significantly different data will be obtained.On the city edge, and in vicinity of major traffic arteries and farther, premises intended for retail trade of the products from China and Turkey are prevalent.Differences are significant in the centres in the city centre.
In the countries of West Europe and North America, shopping centres are not only the form of retail trade, but increasingly the post-modern place of consumption, in which commerce and leisure are interwoven at the same time.These are the so called "cathedrals of consumption", the places in which shopping is a matter of prestige, power and symbolism, significantly more than a simple economic need (Hallsworth 1994).
In order to contribute to attractiveness of space and pleasure of shopping, the promenades, fountains, spaces for rest and alike are arranged within the shopping centres.Shopping centres become the gathering places that are available for everyone (Lorber 2010).
Tab. 2: Number and structure of business spaces in choosen shopping centres in Sarajevo.
Source: Archives of shopping centres in Sarajevo, 2010.
A survey was conducted in which several questions referred to reasons of arrival in a single shopping centre to show development of functions of the observed shopping centres.The second concentration zone of the shopping centres is on Stup, in western part of the city not far from the road junction on the city edge.This zone is dominated by "Konzum" and several more centres.This is where the shopping centre "Interex" is located with the sales area of 3.000 m².In immediate vicinity of "Interex" there is a new shopping centre "Merkur", founded in mid-2008.This centre utilises the sales area of 16.000 m² and has 360 free parking places.In this centre there are 100 employed workers.All shopping and business centres have a big parking lot insured.
After the war from 1992 to 1995, a large capital investment arrived from the European Union and opening of local producers towards West-European market started.In addition to general social changes, transition process from the centrally planned to market economy also brought the changes in the economic structure of the Sarajevo region, and other regions of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Occupationa structure of employed people in shopping centres
General and expert knowledge of the employees make the basic qualitative characteristics without which development of shopping and business centres cannot be imagined.They themselves require higher education of employees that enables more successful professional mobility and flexibility.That need is a result of development, technical progress, introduction of new technologies in shopping and business centres and more explosive spreading the knowledge.Due to a smaller number of employed people, small needs for electrical power, water as well as smaller volume of costs, local population might find jobs in them.Development of shopping and business centres in future economic development could go in direction of a more balanced number of employed workers in the Sarajevo region.Professional education is important for productivity of the labour force in shopping and business centres of the Sarajevo region, which together with in-service training forms the occupational structure.
With overall economic development in the Sarajevo region education of workers in all economic activities has improved as well.New, younger workers are more educated than those already working.Occupational structure has improved on account of employment of new workers.In shopping and business centres of "Mercator", "Interex", "Robot" and "Merkur", occupational structure of the labour force has been monitored on different levels.In 2010, occupational structure of the employed people was analysed per shopping and business centres.In 2010, the largest number of workers in them was with secondary school qualifications: 1.432 or 34.1% of all employed people.
These are followed by employed people with two-year post-secondary school qualifications: 498 or 11.8%, then 535 or 12.7 % with university qualifications , 248 or 5.9 % with lower educational background , 196 or 4.6 % of unskilled workers and 327 skilled workers or 7.8 % of all employed people (Tab. 3 and Fig. 2).
Tab. 3: Structure of employees as per occupational structure in shopping centres of the Sarajevo, 2010.Despite big efforts of educational policy that tended to formation of the qualified labour force by network of elementary and secondary schools, shopping centres of the Sarajevo region still have an unfavourable occupational structure.This is primarily because the industry in the Sarajevo region has developed by leaning on cheap and uneducated labour force.Development of other tertiary activities also introduced numerous changes in development and structure of the Sarajevo region population.

Results of Survey
Results of survey refer to a reason and a partner with whom a visitor came to shopping centres "Mercator" and "Robot" in central part of the city, and in "Interex" in Sarajevo's settlement of Stup.It has been surveyed with whom the visitors came to shopping centre, and if during the visits on that day they were in a cafe or a restaurant (Fig. 3, Tab. 4 and 5).Even 46% of the people surveyed stated the shopping and a good offer of goods as a main reason for their arrival, and only 2% of the people surveyed mentioned socializing with friends as a main reason for their arrival.A good supply of accompanying services and catering functions, as a main reason for their arrival, were mentioned by 3.9% participants, which shows strengthening the service functions in the shopping centres and longer time of visitor's stay in the centre.This is also confirmed by the data that even 30.7 % of total number of participants visited cafe or a restaurant during their stay in the shopping centre.Differences between the single centres are not too big, although it could be expected that, due to position of 'Mercator' in the residential district, a larger number of participants would mention socializing with friends as a main reason for arrival to a shopping centre.
Tab. 5: Partner with whom a visit to shopping centre was paid, (in %), 2010.Reasons for arrival to a shopping centre do not change considerably in relation to time of survey, which indicates to almost exclusive monofunctionality of shopping centres.From the mentioned data, it is noticeable that the shopping centres on the edge parts of the city still have much more developed commercial functions, while social functions are still relatively poorly developed.This is supported by the fact that even 41.5% of the people surveyed visited shopping centre alone.There are also differences between the particular times of the day so that numbers of the visitors who come to shopping centre alone decrease from morning to evening, and equally numbers of the visitors who come to the centre with family or a spouse increase.

Conclusion
The first shopping centres in the world were opened in the 1920s.In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the shopping centres appeared at the end of 1995.The first shopping centre that was opened in Sarajevo was "Robot".Soon after this one, "Interex" centre was also opened, more precisely in 1999, and "Mercator" centre in 2003.Today, eight shopping centres with different functions are located in central part of Sarajevo, and on the edge parts of the city and on intersections of major traffic arteries there are three more shopping centres.
Shopping centres in Sarajevo develop on the locations, which have already been marked by the pre-war industrialization.Business centres expand and occupy new areas.In Sarajevo, three types of locations of shopping centres can be distinguished: in the city centre, on the intersections of major traffic routes, and near the road junctions on the city edges.On the one hand, we have a strong concentration of business centres in several Sarajevo's municipalities, and these are: Stari Grad, Centar, Novo Sarajevo, Novi Grad, Ilidža, while the existence of shopping centres in the area of municipalities Hadžići, Trnovo, Ilijaš and Vogošća is of significantly smaller extent.
For the needs of this research secondary sources data have been used, gathered by utilisation of three basic methods: gathering the data in the field, surveying the citizens, and interviewing the employees.The data on type of service in the mentioned shopping centres have been collected in the field.Planning and conducting the survey have given the receptive results of the demanding task in the spatial distribution of shopping centres in Sarajevo.

SHOPPING AND BUSINESS CENTRES IN SARAJEVO Summary
Commerce is one of important urban functions, which had a strong influence on rise, development of urban functions and development of Sarajevo city.However, over the time retail trade has undergone huge changes, adjusting to demands and needs of increasingly larger population-changing the size of sales outlets, their position, retail business; all of these according to the changes in spatial distribution of population in Sarajevo.The objective of this paper was to show development of the shopping centres on the edges of the city, and at the intersections of major urban highways.Their position, structure and functions have been shown in this paper.
The data on the structure of single shopping centres have been gathered with observation method and mapping the activities in particular shopping-business centres in Sarajevo, in settlements of Ilidža, Hadžići and Vogošća, particularly from the aspect of the mentioned additional functions.A survey was conducted in shopping centres of BBI, Mercator, Tuš, Konzum and Obi in the period from 15 th to 25 th September 2010, when 1.550 visitors have been surveyed.Most of the people surveyed gave a response according to the set up survey in the shopping centres.In the place of the former industrial enterprises, smaller workshops and warehouses, and new, multi-storey shopping-residential buildings, with headquarters of big financial, information and commercial centres, have been constructed lately.
There are two concentration zones of commercial centres in Sarajevo.The first concentration zone is in the southern part of the city.There are several shopping centres there.Among these are: Shopping centre "Robot", which is located in Sarajevo settlement of Hrasno, opened in 2002 and occupying an area of around 12.000 m².In immediate vicinity of that centre there is one more shopping centre, which is also in ownership of the "Robot" group, and is situated in Novo Sarajevo, on the road near the tramway track.It was established in the mid-2007 and covers an area of about 14.000 m²."Robot" employs 700 workers in Sarajevo and 600 workers in Bihać today.It uses about 55.000 m² of own sales area where a wide range of food and chemical products is represented: a selection of technical goods, audio and video equipment, dishes and toys, and its own storage area.Occupational structure of the employed people in 2010 was analysed in shopping and business centres.In 2010, the largest number of workers in them was with secondary school qualifications 1.432 or 34.1% of all employed people.These are followed by employed people with two-year post-secondary school qualifications 498 or 11.8%, then 535 or 12.7% with university qualifications, 248 or 5.9 % with lower educational background , 196 or 4.6 % of unskilled workers and 327 skilled workers or 7.8% of all employed people.
For the purpose of research and development of shopping centres' functions, the visitors were asked for their reasons in coming to the shopping centres, if they used any of the services and had visited a centre.Even 46% of the people surveyed stated that shopping and the good offer of goods were main reasons for their arrival, and only 2% of the surveyed people mentioned socializing with friends as the main reason for their arrival.From the mentioned data, it is noticeable that shopping centres in the fringe areas of the city still have much more developed commercial functions, while social functions are still relatively poorly developed.

Fig. 2 :
Fig. 2: Share of employed people according to occupational structure of the Sarajevo, 2010 Source: Archives of shopping centres, 2010.

Fig. 3 :
Fig. 3: Reasons for visit to single shopping centres of the Sarajevo, 2010.
Tab. 4: Reasons for visit to single shopping centres of the Sarajevo, 2010.