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Like so many tourism hot spots, the pandemic brought visitation to Las Vegas to a near halt. Since then, the city has invested heavily in several new entertainment and sports venues – redefining Las Vegas for the post-pandemic era.
Yet standing in the way of Las Vegas’ next tourism boom is a growing challenge: affordability. For many travelers, a Vegas getaway has become increasingly out of reach, starting with the rising cost of staying on the iconic Strip. But the Strip itself may also hold the solution. AI-powered location intelligence suggests that activations designed to bring visitors directly to the corridor can boost foot traffic and attract mainstream audiences, reinforcing the Strip’s role as a central tourism engine.
After a brief foot traffic recovery in 2021 and 2022, visits to the Strip have remained below pre-pandemic levels. But since last year, the traffic decline appears to have tapered off– signaling a fresh baseline upon which visitation can build in the months and years ahead.
While the Strip's overall foot traffic has stabilized, major pop culture moments continue to drive meaningful spikes in visitation. Across a range of major events in 2026, out-of-market traffic jumped significantly above the same-day-of-week average.
The recent BTS ARIRANG World Tour was a tourism powerhouse, as the city rolled out weeks-long activations that drove traffic beyond the performance venue and onto the Strip itself. Similarly, the EDC World Party Parade, Bruno Mars Day, and the NASCAR Cup Series Hauler Parade all served as prime examples of broader venue-based events with an on-Strip element that ignited foot traffic – a formula that could be key to Las Vegas’s next chapter of tourism growth.
Diving into the demographics of Strip visitors highlights why boosting these event-based audiences could be critical.
Since the pre-pandemic period, the Strip's everyday visitor base has become notably more affluent – likely in part due to rising costs at hotels and resorts. In January through May of 2019, the median household income (HHI) of Strip visitors was $93.2K, compared to $101.1K during the same window in 2026.
However, on nearly all of the event days analyzed – with the exception of Bruno Mars Day – the Strip’s median HHI declined, in several cases pulling back toward 2019 levels. The EDC World Party Parade drew a median HHI of $94.7K, and on BTS concert days, the median HHI on the Strip ranged from $95.9K to $97.4K.
This shows that events driving traffic to the Strip are attracting audiences that more closely reflect the broad, mass-market appeal on which Las Vegas built its identity. By attracting a broader cross-section of visitors, widely accessible on-Strip events could help rekindle both the scale and diversity of visitation that characterized the city before the pandemic.
Las Vegas has invested heavily in new sports and entertainment venues. But as the city enters its next era of tourism, maximizing the role of the Strip could be key to driving visitation, engagement, and economic activity.
For more data-driven civic storylines, visit Placer.ai/anchor.
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Retail corridors – with their orientation towards apparel flagships, aspirational brands, and dining – have not been immune to the macroeconomic pressures weighing on discretionary retail. Declining consumer sentiment and tariff uncertainty appear to have impacted visits, which decreased year-over-year (YoY) most months since September 2025. And after a relatively resilient January and February, three of the steepest YoY visit gaps of the past year came in March, April, and May 2026, as rising fuel prices added another layer of financial pressure to household budgets.
Zooming in on monthly visit duration provides further evidence that economic headwinds – and pressure at the pump in particular – are having a meaningful impact on retail corridor traffic as the year progresses.
In January and February 2026, visits of less than 30 minutes decined compared to 2025 while visits of 30 minutes or more increased. This could reflect ongoing cost-of-living concerns – with consumers shopping more deliberately, checking prices, and taking longer to decide. In addition, consumers continue to prioritize elevated retail experiences and third-places, which can be cost-effective forms of recreation while encouraging longer dwell times. These factors likely helped fuel growth in extended visits while supporting overall traffic resilience for the first two months of the year.
But since March 2026, economic uncertainty has been compounded by rising fuel prices – perhaps making driving downtown less appealing to some. As a likely consequence, visits under 30 minutes dipped further, and visits of over 30 minutes flattened or declined outright, indicating that retail corridors are seeing an overall contraction of the discretionary-oriented activity they typically depend on.
To be sure, extended visits are still the norm. The average visit to retail corridors remained above two hours throughout the first five months of 2026, as they remain ideal destinations for discovery and leisure time. That strength, alongside incremental improvements in the longest visit buckets could signal an overall visit resurgence in the months ahead.
Retail corridor visitation trends show that consumer behavior can shift quickly in response to macroeconomic conditions. While early 2026 showed signs of more intentional, third-place style visits, the current fuel price spike appears to be putting a damper on mid-to-extended length trips. For retailers and civic stakeholders, resilience may depend on enhancing the consumer experience, in-store and along the corridor, giving consumers a reason to visit – and stay a while.
For more data-driven retail insights, visit placer.ai/anchor.
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The broader restaurant industry continues to navigate a challenging economic environment, and rising gas prices have made value perception an even more important factor for consumers in determining where – and how – they choose to eat. With fuel costs remaining elevated throughout May 2026, we turned to the latest Placer.ai Dining Index data to assess how different dining segments performed and whether these emerging trends continued to gain momentum.
Dining traffic in May 2026 painted a mixed picture for the restaurant industry. Visits to full-service chains rose year-over-year (YoY) after two consecutive months of declines, likely benefiting from both Mother's Day and a favorable calendar shift. May 2026 included five Sundays compared to four in May 2025 – a subtle but meaningful tailwind for sit-down dining. The rebound suggests that even amid a challenging economic backdrop, consumers remain willing to spend on special occasions.
At the same time, pressure continued to build in the more value-oriented dining segments. QSR visit declines widened YoY, while fast-casual traffic growth slowed. Together, these trends provide additional evidence that persistent inflation and tighter household budgets are weighing on consumer behavior – particularly among the typically value-conscious audiences of QSR and fast casual chains.
Some of the weakness in QSR traffic – and even the slowdown in fast casual growth – may be tied to shifting consumer preferences around drive-thru usage and other convenience-based ordering channels
Location intelligence reveals that sub-10-minute visits to the two limited-service segments have underperformed compared to overall visits for several months. And in May 2026, short visits to QSR chains fell sharply YoY, while short visits to fast casual chains also decreased – their first such decline of 2026. The drop in visits under 10 minutes to both segments – a duration typically associated with drive-thru, but also pickup, and delivery orders – suggests that diners are not only looking to reduce fuel consumption but are increasingly prioritizing the experience of dining out over the convenience of picking up food to go.
With summer travel season around the corner and some modest relief at the pump beginning to emerge, drive-thru traffic, for its part, could shift into a higher gear in the weeks and months ahead.
May's dining data highlights a growing divide within the restaurant industry. While consumers continue to make room for special-occasion dining, value-oriented segments face mounting challenges as economic pressures persist. And with short-duration visits declining across both QSR and fast casual chains, elevated fuel costs may be reshaping how consumers approach their favorite chains.
For the latest dining insights, visit Placer.ai/anchor.
Following five consecutive quarters of declining same-store sales, Wendy's has appointed Robert D. “Bob” Wright – fresh off a successful turnaround at Potbelly – to steer the Dublin, Ohio-based chain back to growth. Can Wright work his magic once again? We dove into the data to understand what it will take to engineer another comeback.
Wendy's appointment of Bob Wright is rooted in his success leading Potbelly through a strong post-pandemic recovery. During Wright's tenure, Potbelly outperformed the broader fast-casual segment, while Wendy's has struggled to keep pace with the QSR industry's recovery – and Wendy's is likely betting that Wright can bring a similar turnaround playbook to Wendy's.
But whether Wright can replicate his success at Potbelly depends, in part, on what's driving Wendy's current challenges.
While macroeconomic headwinds have pressured value-oriented restaurant spending, they do not fully explain Wendy’s recent traffic struggles.
Wendy’s, McDonald’s, Burger King, and Taco Bell all attract visitors from trade areas with similar median household incomes, yet Wendy’s has been the only chain to consistently post substantially weaker same-store visit performance over the past year.
Cross-visitation data further suggests that Wendy's challenges extend beyond macroeconomic headwinds. Since 2019, Wendy's customers have become increasingly likely to visit competing restaurant chains, indicating that the brand may be losing differentiation in an increasingly crowded market.
The encouraging news for Wendy's is that the traffic data points to several areas of underlying strength. If Wendy's can reconnect with consumer segments and dayparts where it has historically demonstrated traction, it may be able to reignite growth without fundamentally reinventing the brand.
On the demographic front, AI-based location analytics suggests that Wendy's may already possess an advantage that many restaurant chains are trying to build – a meaningful connection with younger consumers. Compared to the broader QSR industry, Wendy's captured market includes a larger share of younger, nonfamily households, indicating that the brand has established a stronger foothold among Gen Z and younger millennials than many of its peers.
So rather than trying to fundamentally reshape its customer base, Wendy's may have a greater opportunity to build on an audience that is already engaging with the brand. The success of initiatives such as the SpongeBob SquarePants collaboration demonstrates how culturally relevant campaigns can translate that engagement into traffic gains, giving Wendy's a potential blueprint for strengthening its relevance with younger consumers even further.
At the same time, the chain also overindexes on older consumers, positioning it to appeal to two demographic groups that many brands struggle to reach simultaneously. This positions the brand to appeal to two demographic groups that many restaurant concepts struggle to reach simultaneously and may create opportunities across multiple dining occasions. In particular, older consumers could represent a valuable audience for breakfast, a daypart where Wendy's has historically invested heavily but has recently begun to pull back.
Indeed, Wendy's has recently allowed some franchisees to reduce breakfast hours as demand has softened across the industry. Yet the data suggests that the brand's breakfast's challenges are not solely a function of weakening consumer demand for QSR breakfast – Wendy's morning traffic has fallen substantially faster than the category as a whole, pointing to a meaningful share loss.
That dynamic – especially given the brand's overindexing among older diners – raises questions about whether further retrenchment is the right long-term strategy. Even though breakfast accounts for a relatively small share of overall visits (less than 9% of Wendy's visits take place between 6 AM and 10 AM) abandoning the daypart risks accelerating traffic declines, and it is not clear that consumers who stop visiting Wendy's for breakfast will simply shift their visits to lunch or dinner. Instead, targeted efforts to improve breakfast awareness, relevance, and differentiation could help Wendy's close one of its largest performance gaps and recapture incremental visits that might otherwise be lost to competitors.
While Wendy's challenges are real, location analytics suggest that the chain is far from starting from scratch. Between its established appeal among younger consumers, its strength with older diners, and a breakfast business that still has room to improve, Wendy's has several levers it can pull to regain momentum. If Bob Wright can apply the same combination of focus, differentiation, and disciplined execution that fueled Potbelly's turnaround, Wendy's may be better positioned for a comeback than recent traffic trends suggest.
For more data-driven dining insights, visit placer.ai/anchor.
Placer.ai leverages a panel of tens of millions of devices and utilizes machine learning to make estimations for visits to locations across the US. The data is trusted by thousands of industry leaders who leverage Placer.ai for insights into foot traffic, demographic breakdowns, retail sale predictions, migration trends, site selection, and more.
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May 2026 brought a fresh round of return-to-office (RTO) pressure – PNC Financial's five-day mandate took effect at the start of the month, while EY told its U.S. tax teams to plan for more in-person time this summer. Both join a growing list of employers tightening face-time policies. At the same time, gas prices climbed to an average of $4.61 in May, making the commute more expensive for employees who drive to work.
How did these competing forces play out on the ground? Did the office recovery continue, or was May the first month this year to show signs of slowing down? We dove into the data to find out.
At first glance, May's results suggest a slowdown. Total visits to the Placer.ai Nationwide Office Index were 38.6% below May 2019 levels and 1.2% below May 2025.
But the apparent weakness is largely explained by the calendar. May 2026 included only 20 working days, compared to 21 in May 2025 and 22 in May 2019. When adjusting for business days, visits were actually 3.7% higher than last year and just 32.4% below the 2019 baseline – compared to 34.9% for May 2025. In other words, May 2026 was the busiest May for per-working-day office attendance since the pandemic, extending the streak in which every month so far this year has set a post-pandemic high for its respective calendar month.
Still, even when normalized, the pace of YoY growth was modest, suggesting that higher commuting costs may be tempering some of the gains from ongoing return-to-office initiatives.
Nationwide Office Index, May 2026
The same calendar effect carried across the major markets, where most cities showed year-over-year declines on raw visits that turned positive once working days were accounted for. San Francisco led the year-over-year (YoY) field, with per-working-day visits up 8.2% – tracking the city's AI-driven leasing recovery. With its strongest leasing quarter this year since 2014, declining office availability, and robust net absorption, the city appears increasingly well-positioned to sustain its momentum.
Los Angeles followed at +6.5% YoY per working day, with Dallas, Chicago, Miami, New York, and Boston all in positive territory. Only three markets stayed slightly negative: Denver, down 1.4% from a year ago, Houston, down 0.6%, and Washington, D.C., essentially flat at -0.1%.
Denver's continued softness likely reflects the same dynamics noted last month – a particularly remote-friendly labor market and record-high downtown vacancy. Still, improving net absorption and gradually strengthening demand for Class A office space may portend stronger visitation trends in the months ahead. Houston's slight decline, meanwhile, may partly stem from contraction in its dominant energy sector, where major employers such as Chevron have reduced local headcount.
On the longer view versus 2019, the RTO rankings held their usual shape. Miami remained the clear leader, sitting 11.0% below its pre-pandemic baseline on a per-working-day basis, with New York next at 18.3% below. Denver finished last once more, down 48.4% from 2019. And San Francisco held onto third-to-last position, showing how far it has come from its former status as the nation's weakest-performing office market.
The pace of office recovery moderated in May, but the calendar accounted for most of the apparent weakness. On a per-working-day basis, office attendance continued to rise, with gains recorded across most major markets.
Whether lower gas prices or additional RTO mandates will reignite a faster recovery later in the year remains to be seen. For now, however, the data suggests that office utilization continues to inch upward, even as the pace of improvement becomes more gradual.
For more data-driven office recovery analyses, visit Placer.ai/anchor.
Placer.ai leverages a panel of tens of millions of devices and utilizes machine learning to make estimations for visits to locations across the US. The data is trusted by thousands of industry leaders who leverage Placer.ai for insights into foot traffic, demographic breakdowns, retail sale predictions, migration trends, site selection, and more.
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Despite reports of record-low consumer sentiment in May 2026, consumer foot traffic increased year-over-year across all mall formats in May, marking the second straight month of gains and the fourth positive month of 2026.
Some of May's gains may be attributable to a calendar shift. May 2026 included one additional Sunday and one fewer Thursday than May 2025 – and because Sundays typically generate stronger mall traffic than Thursdays, the difference in weekday composition likely provided a tailwind for visitation.
Still, even after adjusting for differences in weekday composition, YoY traffic growth remained positive for both indoor malls and open-air centers. Even outlet malls – which typically require longer drives and cater to less affluent shoppers – maintained traffic levels in line with last year despite ongoing economic pressures.
Year-over-Year Change in Average Daily Visits by Weekday and Mall Format, With Each Format's Calendar-Normalized Monthly Trend
Bars show the year-over-year change in average daily visits for each weekday; dashed lines show each format's calendar-normalized monthly figure.
The stable-to-positive mall visitation trends are particularly notable given the broader discretionary retail environment, where consumer traffic has declined YoY since mid-April as rising gas prices and economic uncertainty have begun to weigh on spending behavior.
What is setting malls apart? One potential explanation is that mall visits and traditional retail spending are increasingly decoupled. Unlike standalone retail stores, malls serve a variety of purposes beyond shopping, including dining, fitness, entertainment, and socializing. As a result, consumers may be scaling back purchases of discretionary goods without materially reducing their mall visits. And while they may be spending less on apparel, accessories, or other retail categories, they may still be spending money within the mall ecosystem through restaurants, entertainment venues, and other services.
But that does not necessarily mean that mall traffic is disconnected from retail demand – as mall resilience may also simply be a reflection of the ongoing bifurcation of the U.S. consumer. Compared to the broader discretionary retail sector, malls draw from more affluent trade areas, giving them greater exposure to households that have remained relatively insulated from recent economic pressures. In this view, consumers are not simply visiting malls for non-retail activities – they are continuing to shop there as well. The combination of a more affluent customer base and an increasingly diversified mix of uses may help explain why mall traffic has remained resilient even as visitation across much of discretionary retail has softened.
While economic uncertainty and weak consumer sentiment are likely to remain headwinds in the months ahead, recent traffic data suggests that malls continue to occupy a unique position within the retail landscape. As malls increasingly blend retail, dining, entertainment, and services – and continue to attract relatively affluent consumers – the sector may remain better positioned than much of discretionary retail to weather a more challenging consumer environment.
During the pandemic and its aftermath, Americans were on the move. Millions left expensive coastal markets for lower-cost destinations across the Sun Belt, while boomtowns such as Bozeman, Boise, and Austin struggled to keep pace with the influx of new residents.
That wave of relocation has since cooled, as return-to-office mandates, higher mortgage rates, and a shrinking affordability gap between coastal cities and many COVID-era hotspots have dampened the incentive to move. But even in a slower market, domestic migration remains one of the most powerful forces shaping local economies, housing markets, and consumer demand.
This report leverages AI-powered location analytics to examine the relocation patterns reshaping the United States in 2026 – where Americans are moving, the demographic and economic forces driving those decisions, and how retailers, investors, developers, and policymakers can respond to the opportunities and challenges created by these shifts.
Which major metros are attracting the most new residents? Which pandemic-era standouts have seen growth stall or reverse? And what factors best predict a large metro area's domestic migration growth potential in 2026?
The latest statewide migration data shows that the slower relocation pace observed in 2024 persisted into 2025. No state recorded net inflows or outflows exceeding 0.7% of its starting population. And while several smaller states continued to attract new residents at meaningful rates, none of the nation's six most populous states saw net in-migration exceed 0.2%.
Among those smaller states, South Carolina and Delaware led the nation with net in-migration equal to 0.7% of their populations, followed by Idaho (0.6%), Maine (0.5%), Tennessee (0.4%), and North Carolina (0.3%). For most of these states, migration accelerated relative to 2024, though Delaware's inflow rate moderated slightly and North Carolina held steady.
Despite their differences, these states tend to offer a similar mix of lifestyle amenities, relatively low congestion, and opportunities for growth. Many also benefit from business-friendly climates, favorable tax policies, or housing costs that remain attractive relative to the higher-cost markets from which they draw new residents.
At the other end of the spectrum was Vermont, which saw the nation’s largest net outflow as share of population in 2025, losing 0.4% of its population to domestic relocation. The decline deepens a reversal that first emerged in 2024, when the state swung to a net loss of 0.2%, after attracting inflows of 0.8% and 0.5% in 2022 and 2023, respectively.
Vermont's reversal likely reflects a combination of factors, including return-to-office mandates and the waning appeal of remote work. Housing undersupply in the state may have also contributed, illustrating how important infrastructure investments are to sustaining migration gains over time.
Among the nation's six most populous states, Florida was the only one to see accelerating net in-migration in 2025, attracting new residents equal to 0.2% of its starting population, up from 0.1% the year before. Texas, by contrast, slowed from 0.1% net in-migration in 2024 to essentially flat in 2025, highlighting the cooling of what was once one of the country's strongest pandemic-era migration magnets.
Meanwhile, the legacy "exodus" states continue to lose residents, but at a slower pace than in previous years. Illinois and California have seen their migration deficits steadily narrow, with further improvement in 2025. Between 2022 and 2025, Illinois moved from -0.8% → -0.2% → -0.2% → -0.1%, while California moved from -0.9% → -0.4% → -0.3% → -0.2%. And though New York has held steady at -0.2% over the past two years, this marks a significant moderation from 2022, when the state experienced net outmigration equal to 1.1% of its population.
Statewide trends reveal important shifts, but a closer look at the nation's ten largest metropolitan areas suggests that broader interstate averages increasingly mask diverging local realities. Several metros are attracting residents through interstate domestic migration even when their states as a whole are experiencing little or no net migration growth.
Phoenix (+0.3%), for example, stood out as the nation's top-performing large metro in 2025, despite Arizona's absence from the list of leading migration destinations – with the majority of its inflow coming from out of state.
Dallas (+0.2%) ranked second, continuing its rebound from -0.1% in 2023 even as Texas' statewide migration gains cooled. Like Phoenix, Dallas drew a majority of its new residents from outside the state, underscoring its growing appeal as a national migration destination. Houston, meanwhile, moved in the opposite direction, falling from 0.1% net in-migration in 2023 to -0.1% in 2025. While it is too early to call this a sustained reversal, the divergence between the two metros may reflect Dallas's growing pull as a corporate magnet alongside rising housing costs and weather-related challenges in Houston.
Metro-level data also suggests that the pandemic-era "big-city exodus" narrative is continuing to fade. Los Angeles improved from -0.8% in 2023 to -0.3% in 2025, while New York held steady at -0.3% after improving in 2024. Even Miami (-0.6%), which ranked last among major metros despite Florida's continued statewide gains, saw its outflows moderate from 2023 levels. And while Illinois continued to post net outmigration, Chicago (0.0%) reached migration neutrality in 2025 after recording losses in both 2023 and 2024.
Despite Miami's struggles – and Florida’s relatively modest 0.2% inflow – a look beyond the top 10 large metros reveals that the Sunshine State is home to six of the nation's eight fastest-growing large metros nationwide.
Those top-performing metros, defined as CBSAs with 500K+ residents that added at least 0.8% of their population through net domestic migration over the past year, share a similar profile: lower housing costs, retiree appeal, suburban density, and an easy drive to a larger economic hub.
Much of the growth of these Florida metro areas, however, is being fueled from within Florida itself. While major out-of-state metros such as New York (6.1%) and Chicago (2.0%) remained important sources of new residents, nearly half of the net migration into Florida's top destination metros came from elsewhere in the state. In 2025, Miami (22.5%), Orlando (13.0%), Tampa (5.8%), and Naples (4.2%) together accounted for 45.5% of the net positive migration feeding these fast-growing markets.
The migration flows feeding the nation’s fastest-growing large metros suggest that affordability remains a powerful driver of domestic relocation.
In 2025, seven of the eight top destination metros analyzed above had lower typical home values than their largest feeder markets. Lakeland–Winter Haven, FL, for example, had a typical home value of $313.4K in December 2024, compared with $404.9K in Orlando and $380.2K in Tampa – its two largest sources of net migration. Even North Port–Bradenton–Sarasota, FL – the most expensive Florida metro in this group – drew its largest share of net migration from the New York metro area, where home values are substantially higher.
The lone exception was Charleston–North Charleston, SC, whose largest source of net migration was Baltimore – a market with lower typical home values than the destination. Even in Charleston, however, affordability appears to have played a role. New York, a significantly more expensive market, ranked a close second in 2025, accounting for 6.5% of net positive migration into Charleston, just behind Baltimore’s 6.8%.
While housing costs are only one factor influencing migration decisions, the data suggests that households continue to gravitate toward markets where homeownership is comparatively more attainable than in the places they leave behind.
Typical Home Values* in Top Feeder Markets to Destination Hubs, 2025
*Typical home value based on Zillow Research’s Zillow Home Value Index (ZHVI) for Dec. 2024, immediately preceding the analyzed migration period (Jan.–Dec. 2025).
But as important as affordability is in explaining today’s domestic migration patterns, age appears to be an even stronger determinant of where people choose to relocate.
Among mid-sized and large metros (250K+ residents) experiencing significant population shifts – defined as gaining or losing at least 1.0% of their starting population through domestic migration over the past two years – households are increasingly moving toward older, more established communities.
The data reveals a clear negative relationship between migration performance and age differential – a metric calculated by subtracting the median age of the destination market from the weighted median age of its feeder markets. Negative values indicate movement toward older communities, while positive values indicate movement toward younger ones. In other words, the metros attracting the strongest migration inflows tend to be older than the markets sending them residents.
The data also shows a clear positive relationship between migration performance and retiree concentration. Metros with larger shares of residents aged 65 and older generally saw stronger migration gains over the past two years, while younger metros tended to attract fewer newcomers. This suggests that retiree-driven relocation has become an increasingly important driver of migration. At the same time, the influx of younger residents points to the broader appeal of these communities, which offer a mix of affordability, amenities, and lifestyle advantages.
Net Migration as Share of Starting Population, 2024–2025*
*Analysis includes metro areas with 250K+ residents and domestic migration gains or losses of at least 1.0% during the study period. Weighted Age Differential compares the destination market’s median age with the weighted median age of origin markets, with positive values indicating migration toward younger markets and negative values indicating migration toward older markets. Age data: Census ACS 2020–2024.
The pandemic-era urban exodus is giving way to a more nuanced migration landscape. Large urban markets are stabilizing, while growth is increasingly concentrated in smaller states, secondary metros, and intra-state corridors. Affordability remains a powerful pull, but retirees, lifestyle considerations, and local market dynamics are also playing an increasingly important role in where Americans choose to live.
To capitalize on these shifts in 2026, civic leaders, commercial real estate (CRE) investors, retailers, and developers should:
Across segments, retail and dining expansions converge on a common set of priorities, including identifying markets with strong demand, ensuring alignment with target audiences, and leveraging local consumer behavior to drive synergy. Using AI-powered location intelligence, we analyzed five expanding brands and segments to uncover the core principles driving successful site selection.
Nationwide visits to coffee chains are up in 2026, with established brands and newcomers alike seeing their traffic increase as consumer headwinds lead some to shift their discretionary spend towards more affordable indulgences. But past visit growth does not necessarily indicate future opportunity – it may instead signal market saturation. Relying solely on overall visit trends to guide expansion could lead chains into highly competitive markets where existing supply already meets demand.
For example, analyzing traffic trends in 10 major metro areas where coffee visits increased year-over-year (YoY) in Q1 2026 reveals significant gaps between overall traffic trends and per-location demand. In some CBSAs, overall traffic growth significantly outpaced per-location traffic trends – suggesting that supply is already meeting (or exceeding) demand and limiting room for new coffee locations despite overall category growth. But in other metro areas, where overall visit growth appears smaller, per-location traffic is actually booming – indicating that the underlying demand is resilient enough to support additional coffee concepts.
These patterns highlight the importance of looking beyond topline growth to identify where true whitespace still exists.
Effective site selection matches both regional and local demographics to a brand’s target customer, supporting performance and reinforcing positioning. But even in well-aligned metros, results depend on site-level precision – locations where the trade area visitor profile most closely reflects the brand’s core audience are best positioned to drive incremental upside.
An analysis of Alo locations in the DC area suggests that the company is adopting this strategy. Within the already high-income metro area of Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, individual Alo Yoga stores are placed in centers that draw even more affluent visitors – maximizing the revenue potential of each location.
In fact, Alo's newest stores in the metro area – One Loudoun and Bethesda Row – drive traffic from households with higher median incomes than even the established area locations. This signals a clear focus on premium retail corridors and affluent consumer segments, which reinforces the brand’s positioning while capturing higher-spending customers at the site level.
Beyond driving traffic potential and demographic alignment, site selection should also ensure that a brand’s identity and operating model are well matched to the visitation patterns of prospective locations. Barnes & Noble offers a clear example. The company’s ongoing resurgence has relied in part on repositioning itself as a local cultural and social hub, with a stronger emphasis on local curation and community-driven events.
And analyzing Barnes & Noble’s 2026 openings shows a clear tilt toward centers with a higher share of local traffic than the chain average – supporting its shift away from a purely transactional retail model toward a more community-centric experience built around local curation, events, and repeat visitation. By prioritizing locally driven centers, the company’s site selection strategy not only captures relevant traffic but also reinforces its broader repositioning as a neighborhood-oriented brand.
Effective site selection recognizes that proximity to competitors can function as a demand driver, amplifying traffic rather than diluting it.
In practice, this often takes the form of clustering – deliberately locating near similar or complementary concepts to capture shared demand. Shake Shack provides a clear example. Analyzing the chain's store fleet shows that many locations sit near other QSR and fast-casual concepts, creating opportunities to capture dining-based traffic. At the same time, strong cross-visitation patterns indicate that these co-located brands share a common customer base, positioning the brand closer to consumers who are already likely to visit. And, at least for Shake Shack, this strategy appears to be working – traffic to the chain increased 19.9% YoY in Q1 2026.
Incorporating trade area analysis into site selection can also help determine whether a new location will generate new traffic or risk cannibalizing existing demand. Aldi, a rapidly expanding grocery chain, offers a relevant example.
The company opened a fourth Las Vegas store on S Decatur Blvd in October 2025, positioned between existing locations on W Craig Rd and S Rainbow Blvd, approximately eight miles from each. And analyzing the core trade area of each of the four Las Vegas locations indicated limited visitor cannibalization over the last six months, despite the stores’ close proximity. Only 6.2% and 7.6% of the S Decatur Blvd store’s trade area overlapped with the W Craig Rd and S Rainbow Blvd stores’ trade areas, respectively.
These findings show that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to store spacing – it varies by brand, category, and market. Analyzing a company’s existing store network alongside competitor density and overall demand can help determine how closely locations can be placed without hurting performance. In many cases – especially in high-frequency categories like grocery – markets can support stores that are closer together than expected.
Physical retail is increasingly defined by a small group of dominant players – Walmart, Target, Costco Wholesale, and Dollar General – that span grocery, essentials, and discretionary categories at a scale no other retailers can match. These chains serve as bellwethers of consumer behavior, revealing where Americans are spending, how often they shop, and what drives their decisions. And understanding their visitation patterns sheds light on the key dynamics shaping both their performance and the broader blueprint for retail success in 2026.
Retail giants Walmart, Target, Costco Wholesale, and Dollar General continue to capture a growing share of brick-and-mortar visits nationwide.
• The share of physical retail traffic captured by these giants rose from 16.8% in 2019 to 17.5% in Q1 2026, signaling continued sector consolidation.
• The scale advantage enjoyed by retail giants is increasingly self-reinforcing: Larger players benefit from superior data, stronger vendor leverage, and operational efficiencies that in turn further widen the gap.
• As these advantages compound, direct competition becomes less viable. Instead, smaller retailers should focus on owning specific trip missions – such as convenience, fill-in, or discovery – where format, assortment curation, and in-store experience can more directly shape consumer choice.
• For CRE operators, the growing dominance of these retail giants increases reliance on top-tier anchors, potentially driving performance gaps between centers with strong national tenants and those without.
• For CPG companies, the consolidation in the offline retail space heightens channel concentration, making success with a handful of large retailers critical while increasing those retailers’ negotiating leverage.
Traffic trends across the four giants reveal meaningful divergence in performance.
• Costco and Dollar General are driving the strongest visit growth, supported by both substantial fleet expansions and rising visits per location. In 2025, visits per store exceeded pre-pandemic levels by 18.1% for Costco and 10.2% for Dollar General, with both brands also seeing steady increases in their share of total brick-and-mortar retail chain visits.
• Walmart remains the largest player by far, accounting for 9.7% of traffic to major brick-and-mortar chains in 2025. And though the behemoth’s share of visits declined slightly in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic, it has held steady over the past three years.
• Target’s visit share has remained relatively flat over the past three years, reflecting stalled momentum. Still, early 2026 trends point to emerging signs of recovery – with Q1 visits up 8.3% compared to Q1 2019.
• Value retail is winning, but in more specialized forms: Dollar General (extreme value + convenience) and Costco (bulk value + loyalty) are driving the strongest traffic growth and rising visits per store, while Walmart’s broad “everyday value” remains steady with slower growth. Target, for its part, is lagging – likely a reflection of the broader bifurcation in retail which has left middle-market players caught between consumers trading down to value and those trading up to quality.
• For retailers and CPG companies, the broader lesson is that value perception is becoming more nuanced. It’s no longer just about offering low prices at scale, but about how value is delivered – whether through small packs vs. bulk, or quick trips vs. stock-up missions. Success increasingly depends on prioritizing these distinct value formats and investing in channels where store-level productivity is improving.
• For CRE operators, the outperformance of retailers with clearly defined value propositions underscores the importance of mission-driven tenant mix. As shoppers visit with increasingly specific missions in mind, retailers that cater to those missions are outperforming. Tenant strategies should reflect this shift, ensuring complementary offerings that reinforce a cohesive shopping mission.
Walmart remains the dominant brick-and-mortar retailer nationwide and across all fifty states. Still, the data suggests there is room for multiple runners-up to succeed across geographies and customer segments.
• Dollar General, Target, and Costco each attract distinct audience segments. Dollar General attracts a disproportionately high share of the “Mature and Retired Living” segment, while Costco leads among family households, with Target also over-indexing with this group. Among younger “Contemporary Households,” meanwhile – a segment encompassing singles, married couples without children, and non-family households – Target commands the highest share, slightly over-indexing compared to the nationwide baseline.
• Regional strengths vary significantly, with Dollar General concentrated in the South, Costco dominant in the Northwest, and Target showing more dispersed areas of strength.
• Despite similar overall visit share, Dollar General leads in more states (26 vs. 17 for Target), reflecting broader geographic dominance.
• For retailers, the data suggests that growth opportunities are increasingly shaped by localized demographic and geographic dynamics – meaning that targeted, market-specific strategies may be more effective than uniform national approaches.
• Younger “Contemporary Households” remain less locked-in than older demographics, representing a key battleground for future growth.
• For CPG companies, this data highlights that channel strategy is really about building the right mix of retailers, since even large national players reach different types of consumers.
• CRE operators should ask "which anchor is right for this trade area" rather than "which anchor is strongest," as mismatched tenants can underperform even if they’re nationally dominant.
After remaining essentially flat in 2025, average visits per location to Walmart grew 3.5% YoY in Q1 2026. And the retailer’s solid Q1 performance across the U.S. underscores its unique ability to resonate across income levels, geographies, and shopping missions.
• Walmart posted year-over-year visit growth across nearly all U.S. markets in Q1 2026, reinforcing its role as a universally relevant retailer.
• The giant’s comparative softness in small parts of the Northeast suggests an opportunity to double down on region-specific assortments, urban-friendly formats, or partnerships to better match local shopping behaviors.
• Walmart’s broad-based growth shows that even as consumers are increasingly willing to visit multiple retailers to get what they want, its Superstore model has solidified its role as a primary stop on the American shopping journey – making it a uniquely reliable anchor for CRE operators.
• For smaller retailers, this underscores the opportunity to win the “second stop” – capturing trips through curated assortments and more tailored in-store experiences that Walmart’s scale is less optimized to deliver.
• For CPG companies, Walmart stands out as a highly attractive partner for broad, efficient reach, given its consistent traffic across markets.
Target’s recent performance suggests early momentum in reversing prior softness.
• Q1 2026 visits to Target rose 5.1% year over year, marking the chain’s first positive visit growth in more than a year, and suggesting that the chain’s new turnaround strategy may be bearing fruit.
• Gains were driven primarily by visits lasting 30 to 45 minutes, which accounted for 19.6% of overall visits to Target in Q1 2026 – pointing to stronger in-store engagement rather than quick, mission-driven stops.
• Target’s return to traffic growth – driven by increases in mid-length trips – signals a sustainable recovery on the horizon, strengthening its reliability as a traffic-driving tenant for CRE operators.
• Target's turnaround shows retailers how increasing shopper engagement can generate growth by converting quick trips into higher-value, multi-category experiences.
• For CPG companies, the rise in mid-length visits indicates a more receptive in-store environment for discovery and trade-up, making Target an increasingly attractive channel for innovation, merchandising, and premium offerings.
Dollar General is becoming embedded in consumers’ daily routines.
• Visitor frequency to Dollar General is on the rise. In Q1 2026, nearly a quarter of visitors frequented the chain at least four times in an average month, up from 21.2% in Q1 2022.
• Dollar General is becoming increasingly local in nature: As its footprint expands, more visits originate nearby, with 28.0% coming from within one mile – reinforcing its role as a neighborhood store of choice.
• Dollar General’s visitation patterns point to a growing ownership of the convenience mission. Its expanding store density is creating a self-reinforcing network effect, where proximity fuels frequency, and frequency strengthens long-term defensibility.
• For retailers, Dollar General’s rising share of nearby and high-frequency visits shows that proximity can drive habit, making convenience a powerful lever for building repeat behavior.
• For CRE operators, the data highlights the strength of hyper-local, necessity-driven traffic, positioning Dollar General as a stable tenant that anchors consistent, repeat visitation.
• For CPG professionals, the increase in frequent trips signals a high-velocity purchase environment, favoring smaller pack sizes and products that align with regular replenishment cycles.
Costco continues to grow and diversify its audience despite higher membership fees and stricter food court access policies, highlighting the strength of its value proposition and loyalty model.
• In September 2024, Costco raised its membership fees for the first time in seven years – and more recently tightened enforcement of member-only access to its food courts. Despite these changes, visitation has remained strong, highlighting the company’s pricing power and deep customer loyalty.
• At the same time, Costco’s shopper base is broadening, with median household income trending slightly downward while remaining relatively affluent.
• Offering strong value to a relatively affluent consumer base can be a winning formula in 2026. Retailers that combine quality, trust, and perceived savings – rather than competing solely on low prices – are well positioned to drive both loyalty and sustained traffic growth.
• For CRE operators, Costco’s sustained traffic growth and broadening shopper base reinforce its value as a standalone, high-demand traffic magnet that can anchor entire trade areas and drive surrounding retail development.
• For CPG companies, the combination of high traffic and declining median HHI signals that Costco is evolving into a scaled channel reaching beyond affluent shoppers, requiring more diversified assortment and pricing strategies.
