Dutch shopping streets getting significantly more foot traffic; Back to pre-Covid levels

Dutch shopping streets are getting significantly more foot traffic again and visitor numbers are basically back to pre-Covid levels, Locatus reported after its latest biannual footfall counts in 33 shopping areas. The recovery is most visible in the big cities. Smaller cities are still lagging behind.

“The coronavirus period greatly reduced the number of passersby in Dutch shopping streets, even in periods with hardly any coronavirus restrictions,” Locatus said. Compared to pre-pandemic 2019, many shopping streets had fewer than half the visitors in 2020 and 2021. 2022 and 2023 saw a cautious recovery in the crows. Last year, shopping streets had about 75 percent the pre-pandemic visitors.

But foot traffic made a “significant recovery” this spring. “The passerby numbers are almost the same as in 2019,” Locatus said. “However, we do not see this recovery in all centers, but mainly in the really large shopping cities.”

Amsterdam, Utrecht, Maastricht, and Den Bosch counted more passers-by this spring than before the pandemic. Smaller cities are also seeing recovery, but the figures are still below those of 2019.

“During the coronavirus, the smaller cities actually did relatively better than the big cities. Now, the pre-corona trend seems to be back. Shopping is happening more and more, but the large numbers are limited to the largest city centers in the Netherlands.”

The top three busiest shopping streets this spring were the Damrak in Amsterdam (over 75,000 passersby), Hoog Catharijne in Utrecht (almost 70,000), and De Groote Staat in Maastricht (around 50,000).

Despite the recovery in visitor numbers, retail vacancy has increased again in recent months. Last summer, 6 percent of retail properties were vacant; now, that’s 6.4 percent.

Last month, Colliers also reported that retail vacancy was increasing. In the first quarter of this year, 8.3 percent of stores in the Netherlands’ 40 largest city centers stood empty. Shops are buckling under rising costs and coronavirus debts that are coming due, the real estate adviser said.