Downtown Pedestrian Traffic Hits High Note in November

Downtown pedestrian traffic rose more in November than in any other month during 2021 as employees returned to the office, according to Springboard, a retail data analytics provider.

The volume of pedestrians increased from -38.1% below 2019 in October to -30.4% below last month.

Pedestrian traffic in the last week of November—which included Thanksgiving and Black Friday—strengthened to -26.7% from -30.9% in the week before, according to Springboard Marketing & Insights Director Diane Wehrle.

The increase “reflects the increased degree of comfort felt by consumers in visiting retail destinations; 52% of consumers feel either very or completely comfortable about shopping in person, an increase from 49% in October,” the study concluded.

.Springboard figured the November increase largely came from the proportionately greater uplift over the breakfast period when employees are coming to work than at other times of the day.

“The fact that pedestrian traffic improved so significantly in November from October demonstrates the importance of office workers to downtowns,” the authors of the report said.

During the three-hour breakfast time, traffic moved from -44.1% below 2019 in the first week of the month to -33.3% in the fourth week.

The company predicted an uplift in downtown pedestrian traffic over the weeks leading up to Christmas averaging +3% from week to week, narrowing the gap from 2019 to -14% by the week of Christmas despite concerns by shoppers and workers about the Omicron variant.

In November, Wehrle wrote, the importance to downtowns of traffic generated by office employees suggests that downtown traffic will continue to remain substantially below pre Covid levels until employees return to their offices in any meaningful number.

“This is a key challenge for downtowns in the final two months of the year, which is a pivotal time for overall annual performance,” the analyst asserted.