Most leasing advice says an empty patch of common area should go to the next cart tenant. That advice is only half right. A cart fills square footage, but it rarely gives anyone a reason to cross the floor. A mall photo booth from SmileMore does, and it costs your center nothing to host. Our crew sets it up, watches it from our office and keeps the paper loaded. Then, each month, your center receives its cut of the take along with a breakdown of every sale. Meanwhile, shoppers pay per session at the booth itself.
So the better question isn’t “what pays for this corner?” Instead, ask what would make people walk to it on purpose.
Why a mall photo booth earns its corner in Florida
Florida malls serve two crowds at once. First, there are locals running errands, escaping the heat or bringing the kids somewhere with air conditioning. Then there are visitors, and there are a lot of them. VISIT FLORIDA’s preliminary count put the state at a record 143.3 million visitors last year. Canadians alone made up roughly 2.9 million of them, and overseas travelers added another 9.3 million.
Visitors, however, shop differently. They want proof they were here, and a keychain only goes so far. A printed strip with your center’s name on it travels home in a carry-on. It also lands in a camera roll, then on a feed.
Locals, meanwhile, bring the weather argument. Summer storms roll in on many afternoons, and the Atlantic hurricane season stretches from June 1 through November 30, per the National Hurricane Center. When it pours, the beach empties and the mall fills up. That’s when an indoor attraction earns its keep.
Then comes snowbird season, roughly November through April. Those shoppers host grandkids, and grandparents tend to love a print they can hold.
What shoppers said they want from a mall visit
The ICSC’s 2025 holiday survey found that 92% of shoppers planned to spend in a physical store. In addition, 80% said they were open to visiting new stores or trying new brands. One in three planned to spend more on experiences.
Read those numbers as a property manager. People still come through your doors, but they want something to do once inside. A booth is a small experience with a physical receipt: three photos, two printed strips, about 90 seconds.
That’s also why we call the booth an attraction first. Shoppers walk over, pull friends into the frame and leave holding something real. In fact, nobody needs a pitch to understand it.
If you manage a center in Broward, Miami-Dade or Palm Beach, you can read how our venue program works in a couple of minutes.
Picking the right spot in your center
Physically, the booth asks for very little: a square of floor roughly five feet per side, a single wall plug, and a doorway of ordinary width to roll it through. So almost any common area can hold a mall photo booth. The harder question is which spot gets noticed.
Here’s our honest opinion: center court beats the food court, even though the food court looks busier. People at the food court have trays in hand and a table to guard. People at center court, by contrast, are deciding where to go next.
| Spot | Why it can work | What to watch |
|---|---|---|
| Center court, near the directory | Everyone passes it, and people pause there to plan | Seasonal displays may compete for space in November and December |
| Outside the cinema entrance | Groups show up early and in a good mood | Quiet on weekday mornings |
| Corridor between two anchors | Steady flow all day | Shoppers move fast, so the wrap has to catch eyes from a distance |
| Food court edge | Big headcount at lunch | Hands are full and tables come first |
| Covered outlet breezeway | Tourist-heavy, open-air feel | Humidity, glare and storm exposure, so we review these spots carefully |
Before we commit, we study how many shoppers pass the spot, when your doors open and close, and a snapshot of that exact stretch of floor. Not every spot qualifies, though. We’d rather tell you that up front than learn it six months in.
The questions your operations team will ask
What if it breaks? Our remote monitoring flags a jammed printer or a payment hiccup before a tenant ever calls your office. Parts, service visits and repairs are on us. No machine runs forever without a fault, and we won’t pretend otherwise. What we do promise is that fixing it belongs to us, not your maintenance crew.
Who empties it and restocks the paper? We do. Guests pay at the booth, we keep it stocked, and you get a monthly report. As a result, your staff never makes a paper run.
Will it look cheap next to our tenants? It shouldn’t. Every SmileMore cabinet is designed and assembled by our own team, not pulled from a wholesale catalog. The exterior gets wrapped to match your center’s palette and logo, and the center’s name appears on each printed strip. At our campus booth, students compliment two things most: how sharp the photos look and how fast the strips drop.
Does our staff have to run it? No. In fact, it never needs a staff member. The whole session runs from the touchscreen, so your guest services desk keeps handling directions and gift cards instead of photo strips.
What about liability? The machine is our responsibility. However, check how your center’s own policy treats equipment in common areas, since every property differs.
What if shoppers ignore it? Then the spot was wrong, and we roll the booth somewhere better. Mall traffic shifts with every tenant change, so a corridor that felt dead last spring may hum after a new anchor opens. We’d rather chase the crowd than defend a bad corner.
Got a corner shoppers walk right past?
Snap the spot on your phone, then add your mall hours and a guess at weekend crowds. We’ll reply with an honest yes or no.
The giveaway that turns shoppers into your ads
Every month we run the SmileMore Challenge. Guests post their strip, tag the venue and tag SmileMore, and that enters them in a monthly draw.
Now think about what that produces. Each entry is a real person posting a real photo that names your center. No influencer contract. No paid boost. Just a shopper telling friends where they spent Saturday.
Malls spend serious money chasing that kind of post. Here, though, it shows up as a side effect of people having fun.
Timing: why October is the month to ask
Holiday decisions get made in September and October, so you’re probably planning now anyway. Even so, be realistic about install dates. Our installs go out in grouped rounds while we grow, so a center that signs up today might wait a season for its booth.
That’s not a reason to wait, though. If your booth lands after the holidays, it arrives with snowbird season in full swing and spring break close behind. Getting on the list now simply puts you ahead of the centers that ask in January.
We work South Florida most. Centers in Orlando, Tampa or anywhere else in Florida should still reach out. We’ll level with you about how soon a crew could realistically drive up. For a broader overview, read our guide to getting a free booth for your Florida business. And if your team wants to see the day itself, our install walkthrough covers it step by step.
Frequently asked questions
Will the booth compete with our tenants?
It shouldn’t, since it sells nothing your tenants sell. Instead, it gives shoppers one more reason to stay inside the building. A family that crosses the concourse for a strip also passes a dozen storefronts on the way.
Who moves the booth if we need center court for a seasonal display?
We do. In other words, our crew handles relocation, not your maintenance team. Just give us notice and tell us where it should go next.
What do you need from us to start a review?
Just the basics: how busy that stretch of concourse gets, when the center is open, and one phone picture of the spot. The form is a two-minute job. Once the spot is approved, we mock up the wrap and book an install window.
Does a mall photo booth work in a small strip center?
Sometimes, though it depends far more on whether people gather than on square footage. A strip center with a busy anchor and a covered walkway can work, while a strip where everyone grabs takeout and leaves usually can’t.
Here’s a question for your next leasing meeting. Which corner of your center do shoppers pass without looking up? Snap a photo of it and send it through our venue form. Then ask yourself this: if people started crossing the floor on purpose to reach that corner, what would it be worth to you?
