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Super Bowl LVIII was a memorable event on and off the field. Rising-star quarterback Brock Purdy of the San Francisco 49ers led a valiant effort – though ultimately fell short – against the Kansas City Chiefs and their veteran starter Patrick Mahomes. The game made history as the first-ever Super Bowl hosted in Las Vegas; plenty of cause for celebration – if the city needed any. And because Vegas is packed with world-class entertainment venues just steps away from the stadium, Super Bowl 2024 was poised to be a bash from the get-go. We used the latest location analytics to take a closer look at the Vegas hotspots where fans and celebrities celebrated (or drowned their sorrows) after the game.
Alongside the excitement of the game inside Las Vegas’s Allegiant Stadium, the party atmosphere of The Entertainment Capital of the World did not disappoint. Compared to the two previous Super Bowls, this year’s contest had the highest percentage of postgame hotel & casino visits – a whopping 38.4% of stadium visitors on Super Bowl Sunday visited a hotel or casino immediately after the game.
These venues have numerous attractions – restaurants, bars, nightclubs, and hotel rooms – so it’s difficult to know what specifically drove elevated foot traffic. However, it’s fair to say that postgame parties were a significant factor.
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Diving deeper into the data revealed which Vegas venues drove the most postgame traffic from stadium visitors. Caesars Palace came out on top, welcoming 6.3% of postgame foot traffic. Notably, the hotel’s Omnia nightclub was the location of the 49ers' postgame gathering where Lil Wayne attempted to alleviate the heartbreak of the losing squad.
Las Vegas’ Harry Reid Int’l Airport – where some fans and staff likely made a quick exit after the game – took second place, and Wynn Las Vegas was the third most-visited postgame location and cemented itself as a Super Bowl party destination – having hosted the champs last year as well. This time around, big stars in Chiefs Kingdom – including Patrick and Brittany Mahomes, Travis Kelce, and Taylor Swift – showed up for an after-party at Wynn Las Vegas’ XS Nightclub to celebrate the victory to the music of Marshmello and Jelly Roll. The hotel’s Encore Beach Club put on an additional after-party honoring Dr. Dre, Snoop Dog, and Usher – who performed the Super Bowl halftime show. Ludacris, who also appeared on stage at halftime, was among the big names in attendance.
Wynn Las Vegas, with 3.7% of postgame traffic, was the fourth most-visited postgame venue. The hotel’s Zouk Nightclub hosted the Chiefs’ official after-party celebration, with Travis Kelce, Taylor Swift, Megan Fox, and Machine Gun Kelly in attendance.
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The Super Bowl LVIII celebrations didn’t end on the Las Vegas Strip. Per tradition, at the end of the game, Super Bowl MVP Patrick Mahomes and his family declared “We’re going to Disneyland!” The following day, the Mahomes family was at a sold-out Disneyland Resort to celebrate the win and take part in the iconic victory parade.
The parade – scheduled for 2 pm – proved popular among Disneyland guests. Location intelligence showed that hourly visits to Disneyland climbed during the lead-up to the parade and peaked at the parade’s start time.
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Las Vegas provided a super-sized entertainment backdrop for sports’ biggest stage and one of the most thrilling Super Bowls to date. Location intelligence from the 2024 Super Bowl suggests that fans who make the trip look beyond the in-stadium action for ways to keep the celebrations going after the final whistle.
For more data-driven entertainment, hospitality, and tourism insights, visit Placer.ai.
There are so many ways to say Happy New Year in Asian languages, such as “Gong Xi Fa Cai” in Mandarin, which means wishing you prosperity in the coming year, “Saehae Bok Mani Badeuseyo” in Korean, wishing you lots of luck, and “Chuc mung nam moi” in Vietnamese, with a similar meaning of wishing you a joyful year. Along with these auspicious greetings are traditional foods such as dumpling soup, mung bean pancake, BBQ beef, sticky rice cakes, and candied fruits. Within the melting pot that is the USA, one can often find an Asian-themed shopping center in which to partake of the festivities. In Westminster, CA, Asian Garden Mall is one of the largest Vietnamese shopping centers in the U.S. At The Source OC, Korean shops and eateries abound. In the Midwest, one can visit Asia Mall Minnesota, with a pan-Asian panoply of offerings.
Last year, Lunar New Year kicked off on Jan. 22, and we can see that Asian Garden Mall visits skyrocketed on that day (below)
During the summer, there is also a vibrant night market there, open from 7-11pm on the weekends. Finds include pork skewers and buns, grilled scallops, mini shrimp crepes, and sugar cane juice.
The night market takes place in the parking lot of Asian Garden Mall and draws accretive business. What would normally be empty during the Feb-May period without a night market becomes a thriving evening adventure during the summer months.
In comparing Feb-May visits (blue) versus Jun-Sept visits (red) below, the mall also draws from a much larger trade area when the night market is occurring.
In terms of festivities, parades and food stalls abound at celebrations like the Tet festival in New Orleans, which takes place this year on Feb. 16-18 in the Village de l’Est neighborhood. There will be fireworks and a dragon dance and of course vats of simmering pho, crispy spring rolls, and puffy fried bananas. In San Jose, CA, home to one of the US’s largest Vietnamese populations, a Tet celebration will be held in the former Sears parking lot at Eastridge Center from Feb 16-18. There will be a talent contest, a visit from Miss Vietnam California, carnival rides, and of course plenty of food booths and desserts.
One of the newer Korean-themed malls is the Source OC, which opened in 2019. While the majority of the food options transport you to being in Korea, there is also Italian at Il Fiora, Japanese at Izakaya Ichie, and Mexican at La Huasteca. One can indulge in Gangnam House Korean BBQ, Monday to Sunday shaved ice, and Cheesetella Japanese Cheesecake. We saw the Source OC dip during Covid like practically all retail, but it has bounced back and is now exceeding pre-Covid visitation levels. Besides the draw of the food, there is also an indoor golf-simulator, a VR experience, and a children’s playground.
Both Koreatown Plaza and Koreatown Galleria are long-standing stalwarts in the heart of LA, but as Americans of all ethnicities increasingly migrate to suburbs, we will no doubt see more shopping center options catering to ethnic tastes outside of downtowns.
The nation’s first enclosed shopping mall was Southdale Center in Edina, MN, a project that opened in 1956, by Victor Gruen, an Austrian-American who would henceforth be known as the “father of the shopping mall.” His original vision was a community hub with access to many shops as well as medical centers, schools, and even residences. This did not occur in the 50s, but three-quarters of a century later, many mall developers are re-envisioning malls to be places to live, eat, play, and shop as well as have access to essential services and to be that third space for community gatherings and celebrations. How fitting that another recent mall in Minnesota, the Asia Mall has been conceived as a reflection of the local community. It opened in November 2022, inspired by the desire for a one-stop pan-Asian mall to get all groceries as opposed to dashing around Minneapolis, St. Paul, Brooklyn Park, and Brooklyn Center to obtain the desired goods. Food and drinks are procured from various Asian countries, such as Vietnam, China, and Korea and anchored by grocery store Asian Mart 88. Dining includes Pho Mai, Hot Pot City with all-you-can-eat hot pot, Cruncheez Korean hot dogs, and Mochi Dough doughnuts. As part of the trend for including essential services, this mall also has a hair salon, insurance company, and travel agency.
It also appears the concept of one-stop-shop, be it for Asian groceries or for warehouse-sized purchases, is prized by the inhabitants of Eden Prairie who really value efficiency. Asia Mall does half the visits of the nearby Costco, which is impressive. Besides home and work, visitors of Asia Mall are most likely to visit Costco before or after a shopping trip (below).
How did off-price leaders T.J. Maxx, Marshalls (both owned by TJX Companies), Burlington, and Ross perform in last year? And how is 2024 shaping up for the category? We dove into the foot traffic data to find out.
Off-price apparel retailers typically employ a straightforward method: sell excess or off-season merchandise that would otherwise remain unsold at a discount, benefiting both shoppers and manufacturers.
This retail model has consistently performed well, as evidenced by the consistent growth in visits to T.J. Maxx, Marshalls, Ross, and Burlington over the past few years. And despite the overall sluggishness experienced by much of the apparel retail category in 2023, visits to these stores continued to increase year-over-year (YoY) in every quarter analyzed.
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January 2024 YoY visit growth slowed slightly – perhaps due to Q1 2023’s exceptionally strong performance. But despite the difficult comparison, foot traffic for most chains remained close to 2023 levels while YoY January visits to Ross increased 5.5%, highlighting the resilience of the off-price sector.
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The demographic and psychographic makeup of a chain’s trade area – which shows the types of visitors who frequent the chain – can be determined by looking at the chain’s potential or captured market. A chain’s potential market is calculated by weighing the Census Block Groups (CBGs) feeding visits to the chain according to the size of the CBG, while the captured market weighs each CBG according to the relative number of visits to the chain originating from that CBG.
Using these tools to analyze the median household income (HHI) in the trade areas of the four chains reveals a divergence between the two TJX-owned chains T.J. Maxx and Marshalls, on one side, and Ross Dress for Less and Burlington, on the other. The median HHI in T.J. Maxx and Marshalls’ potential market is higher than the potential median HHI for Ross and Burlington – and the two TJX brands’ captured market median HHI is even higher. Meanwhile, the median HHI in Ross and Burlington’s captured market is lower than the median HHI in their own potential markets.
The variance in median HHI between the chains may have to do with differences in branding and product selection. Marshalls and T.J. Maxx tend to have the higher price points, with T.J. Maxx in particular expanding its designer offerings over the past few years through its Runway stores. Ross and Burlington, known for their no-frills approach to clothing shopping, have relatively lower price points – and may see more customers seeking bargains over high fashion.
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While an analysis of trade area median HHI highlights differences between the chains’ visitor bases, a deeper exploration of Marshalls, Ross, and Burlington’s trade areas suggests that the retailers also share common ground – specifically, their popularity with middle-income families. For almost all brands, the captured market share of households categorized by the Spatial.ai: PersonaLive dataset as “Family Union” and “Cultural Connections” was larger than the potential market share. T.J. Maxx, which had a slightly lower share of “Cultural Connection” households in its captured market relative to its potential market, was the sole exception.
All four chains continue to add stores to their fleets – Ross opened 97 stores in fiscal 2023, and Burlington is looking to expand in over 60 former Bed Bath and Beyond locations. Focusing on trade areas with diverse families, then, may serve Marshalls, Ross, and Burlington. And T.J. Maxx, which has been enjoying a resurgence of interest from younger shoppers, might consider expanding into areas that attract young professionals.
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Off-price apparel retailers continue to succeed despite – or perhaps because of – a challenging economic climate. Will their success continue into 2024?
Visit placer.ai to keep up-to-date on the latest data-driven retail trends.
With shopping center vacancy rates now lower than they were pre-COVID, we dove into the demographic and psychographic trade area data for leading Indoor Malls, Open-Air Shopping Centers, and Outlet Malls to understand who visited malls in 2023.
Diving into the demographics of the trade areas of the various mall types in 2023 reveal both similarities and differences between the typical visitor to Indoor Malls, Open-Air Shopping Centers, and Outlet Malls.
In all three mall types, the median trade area household income (HHI) in the three mall types was higher than the nationwide median HHI of $69.5K (according to the STI: Popstats 2022 dataset). But Open-Air Shopping Centers drew the highest income visitors, with a trade area median HHI of $87.8K in 2023. The trade area of Open-Air Shopping Centers also had the lowest share of Households with Children and the highest share of singles (One-Person and Non-Family Households).
Outlet Malls lay at the other end of the spectrum, with a trade area median trade HHI of $73.9K, the highest share of Households with Children, and the lowest share of single households. And the median HHI and household composition for the trade area of Indoor Malls stood between those of the other two types.
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Even though Outlet Malls tend to draw the highest, and Open-Air Shopping Centers draw the lowest share of family visitors (Households with Children), diving deeper into various family segments reveals a more nuanced picture.
For example, the trade areas of Outlet Malls do indeed contain the highest shares of the “Family Union” and “Promising Families” segments – defined by Experian: Mosaic as blue-collar families and young families in starter homes, respectively. But Open-Air Shopping Centers tend to draw the highest share of the more affluent “Flourishing Families” segment – perhaps thanks to the Open-Air Shopping Centers’ higher trade area median HHI.
So while the demographic analysis can provide an overall snapshot of the various mall types’ audience, diving into the psychographics can yield a higher-resolution picture of the types of shoppers frequenting each shopping center category.
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For the most part, malls – especially Indoor Malls and Open-Air Shopping Centers – succeeded in exceeding or staying close to 2022 visit levels last year, despite the economic headwinds. And while January data indicates that the space may be entering a challenging period, there are plenty of reasons to think that the dip in early 2024 foot traffic is just a temporary setback driven by a unique set of circumstances. As the year continues to unfold, tracking visits in this sector will offer more insights into the state of the 2024 consumer.
For more data-driven retail insights, visit placer.ai/blog.
When we last checked in with the home improvement category, high interest rates and a cooling housing market had impacted visits to retailers The Home Depot, Lowe’s, and Tractor Supply. As 2024 gets underway, what might lie ahead for these chains? We take a look at the data to find out.
Home Depot and Lowe’s, two of the largest home improvement retailers in the country, command a significant share of the industry. The two chains experienced ups and downs over the past few years, from a pandemic-era spike in visits to a more recent slowdown as rising prices and slowing home sales led many would-be shoppers to rethink a renovation.
The turbulence in the Home Improvement space continued in 2023. In the first half of the year, foot traffic to The Home Depot and Lowe’s showed modest increases on a year-over-year (YoY) basis – but that momentum slowed into the years’ second half as home sales dropped to a six-month low.
Visit performance to these retailers may well improve in 2024. Should home sales pick up as mortgage rates continue on their expected downward trajectory, home improvement chains would likely see an increase in visits as new homeowners grab equipment for renovations.
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Analyzing median household income (HHI) of visitors to The Home Depot and Lowe’s, segmented by potential and captured markets, may provide insights into The Home Depot's stronger year-over-year foot traffic performance. (A chain's potential market looks at the Census Block Groups (CBGs) where visitors to a chain originate, weighted according to the CBG’s population. In contrast, captured market visit data reflects figures weighted by the actual number of visits from each CBG.)
The trade area median HHI tends to be higher for Home Depot than for Lowe’s in the chains’ potential markets – and the differences grow even more pronounced when analyzing the captured market. The Home Depot’s potential market median HHI stood at $71.5K/year – just slightly higher than Lowe’s $69.6K/year. But The Home Depot’s captured market median HHI was $74.3K/year in 2023 – around 4% higher than the chain’s potential market median HHI. Meanwhile, Lowe’s captured market median HHI of $69.0K/year was around 1% lower than its potential market median HHI.
The income disparity between the visitor bases of the two chains may provide context for The Home Depot’s foot traffic strength compared to Lowe’s – The Home Depot’s wealthier customers may be more insulated from the effects of inflation. And as inflation eases and demand for home renovations creeps up, Lowe’s may yet see visits tick up as its customers return to the chain.
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Tractor Supply Co. – another major home improvement chain – also offers a variety of products geared toward farm and ranch living, including animal feed and farm equipment. The company was a surprising pandemic winner, seeing its sales and foot traffic grow significantly as people moved to the countryside.
The chain's popularity has remained strong even as the pandemic-induced migration trends subside and the influx of city-dwellers to rural areas slows down. Visits to Tractor Supply remained consistently high throughout 2023, with only two months experiencing YoY foot traffic lags. Tractor Supply visits also outpaced visits to the home improvement category as a whole, indicating sustained demand for farm products.
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A deeper exploration of the three home improvement chains’ psychographic compositions indicates that Tractor Supply’s popularity with rural segments (as defined by the Spatial.ai: PersonaLive dataset) may be fueling some of its sustained visit success.
All three chains saw a higher share of rural visitors in their captured market compared to their potential market – indicating that rural consumers are particularly interested in home improvement tools and products. And of the three chains, Tractor Supply served the largest share of rural visitors by far. The share of rural audience segments in Tractor Supply’s potential markets significantly exceeded the share of these segments in the trade areas of Lowe’s and The Home Depot’s, and the relative share of rural segments in Tractor Supply’s captured market was even more impressive.
Lowe’s, which has bolstered its rural presence over the past year, had the second-highest percentage of rural segments in both its potential and captured markets – although its share of rural visitors was still considerably lower than Tractor Supply’s.
Meanwhile, The Home Depot saw the smallest share of rural visitors across all rural segments analyzed. The company’s captured market had just slightly more Rural High Income and Rural Low Income visitors relative to its potential market, and there was no difference between its captured and potential market shares of Rural Average Income consumers.
The impressive over-representation of rural customers to Lowe’s and Tractor Supply suggest that the rural potential for home improvement chains is significant – and chains that tap into the segment may see further foot traffic to their stores.
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The home improvement space has seen plenty of variance over the past few years, from the pandemic-fueled DIY highs of 2020 and 2021 to the overall slowdown brought on by inflation in 2023. Will visits begin to pick up again into 2024?
Visit placer.ai/blog for the latest data-driven retail insights.
How did Target, Walmart, Costco, Sam’s Club, and BJ’s Wholesale Club perform offline last year? Who visited the chains in 2023? And what does 2024 have in store for the space? We dove into the foot traffic and trade area composition data to find out.
The superstore and wholesale space performed well across the board in 2023, with leading retailers seeing consistent year-over-year (YoY) quarterly visit growth throughout the year. Costco led the pack in terms of overall YoY visit performance, followed by Sam’s Club and BJ’s Wholesale Club. The wholesale clubs’ strength may be due in part to the chains’ attractive gas prices, which were likely particularly tempting to 2023 consumers looking to stretch their budget.
Visits to Target also remained above the chain’s 2022 baseline during all four quarters, and Walmart – which closed several stores last year – mostly beat its 2022 visit performance, with the exception of Q4 where traffic remained essentially on par with last year’s levels.
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Visits to four out of five of the analyzed superstores and wholesale clubs dipped slightly in January 2024 relative to January 2023, perhaps due to comparisons to a strong Q1 2023 performance or to post-holidays consumer cutbacks. But despite the challenging circumstances, the YoY drops remained minimal – so the softer start to the year is not necessarily an indication of things to come.
And in contrast to the subdued visit performance in the rest of the category, Costco foot traffic exceeded its January 2023 visit baseline – revealing the potential for the superstore space to grow in a positive direction in 2024.
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Analyzing monthly visits to leading superstore and wholesale clubs in 2023 compared to each chain’s monthly visit average reveals different consumer patterns for each brand.
While all chains saw their monthly visits peak in December, Target experienced the most significant holiday peak, with a 33.9% increase in monthly visits compared to its 2023 monthly average – more than double the increases of the other four chains analyzed. Target also saw the strongest August visit growth relative to its 2023 monthly average as parents and students likely flocked to the chain in search of Back-to-School apparel and supplies.
In June and July, Walmart’s relative visit growth exceeded that of the other four chains – possible thanks to consumers stocking up on summer supplies. And the wholesale clubs saw larger relative increases in November, as those chains’ bulk grocery offerings may have helped consumers shop for a crowd ahead of Thanksgiving dinner.
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The trade areas of all five chains analyzed included a higher share of Households with Children when compared to the nationwide average. But the two superstore brands – Walmart and Target – also had larger percentages of 1-Person and Non-Family (roommate) Households when compared to the nationwide average, while the three wholesale clubs had smaller shares.
So while average wholesale clubs and their large selection of bulk packaged items cater primarily to families, superstores seem to attract a wider range of shoppers, including consumers shopping for one and living alone or with roommates.
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Diving into the psychographic composition of the trade areas highlights additional differences between the various chains’ audiences.
The trade areas of Walmart and of its subsidiary Sam’s Club had the highest share of Spatial.ai: PersonaLive’s small town and rural audience segments, including “Small Town Low Income,” “Rural Low Income,” “Rural Average Income,” and “Rural High Income.”
Suburban segments were more distributed. Walmart and Sam’s Club served a higher share of “Blue Collar Suburbs” while Target and Costco drew more “Wealthy Suburban Families” – and BJ’s Wholesale Club received the largest percentage of “Upper Suburban Diverse Families.”
BJ’s trade area also included the largest shares of almost all the urban segments with the exception of “Educated Urbanites” – defined by Spatial.ai as “well educated young singles living in dense urban areas working relatively high paying jobs” – for which Target came out on top.
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The leading superstore and wholesale clubs performed well in 2023 as consumers relied on their bulk-packaging and value-pricing to stretch their increasingly strained budgets.
What does 2024 have in store? Visit the placer.ai blog to find out.
New York City is one of the world’s leading commercial centers – and Manhattan, home to some of the nation's most prominent corporations, is at its epicenter. Manhattan’s substantial in-office workforce has helped make New York a post-pandemic office recovery leader, outpacing most other major U.S. hubs. And the plethora of healthcare, service, and other on-site workers that keep the island humming along also contribute to its thriving employment landscape.
Using the latest location analytics, this report examines the shifting dynamics of the many on-site workers employed in Manhattan and the up-and-coming Hudson Yards neighborhood. Where does today’s Manhattan workforce come from? How often do on-site employees visit Hudson Yards? And how has the share of young professionals across Manhattan’s different districts shifted since the pandemic?
Read on to find out.
The rise in work-from-home (WFH) trends during the pandemic and the persistence of hybrid work have changed the face of commuting in Manhattan.
In Q2 2019, nearly 60% of employee visits to Manhattan originated off the island. But in Q2 2021, that share fell to just 43.9% – likely due to many commuters avoiding public transportation and practicing social distancing during COVID.
Since Q2 2022, however, the share of employee visits to Manhattan from outside the borough has rebounded – steadily approaching, but not yet reaching, pre-pandemic levels. By Q2 2024, 54.7% of employee visits to Manhattan originated from elsewhere – likely a reflection of the Big Apple’s accelerated RTO that is drawing in-office workers back into the city.
Unsurprisingly, some nearby boroughs – including Queens and the Bronx – have seen their share of Manhattan worker visits bounce back to what they were in 2019, while further-away areas of New York and New Jersey continue to lag behind. But Q2 2024 also saw an increase in the share of Manhattan workers commuting from other states – both compared to 2023 and compared to 2019 – perhaps reflecting the rise of super commuting.
Commuting into Manhattan is on the rise – but how often are employees making the trip? Diving into the data for employees based in Hudson Yards – Manhattan’s newest retail, office, and residential hub, which was officially opened to the public in March 2019 – reveals that the local workforce favors fewer in-person work days than in the past.
In August 2019, before the pandemic, 60.2% of Hudson Yards-based employees visited the neighborhood at least fifteen times. But by August 2021, the neighborhood’s share of near-full-time on-site workers had begun to drop – and it has declined ever since. In August 2024, only 22.6% of local workers visited the neighborhood 15+ times throughout the month. Meanwhile, the share of Hudson Yards-based employees making an appearance between five and nine times during the month emerged as the most common visit frequency by August 2022 – and has continued to increase since. In August 2024, 25.0% of employees visited the neighborhood less than five times a month, 32.5% visited between five and nine times, and 19.2% visited between 10 and 14 times.
Like other workers throughout Manhattan, Hudson Yards employees seem to have fully embraced the new hybrid normal – coming into the office between one and four times a week.
But not all employment centers in the Hudson Yards neighborhood see the same patterns of on-site work. Some of the newest office buildings in the area appear to attract employees more frequently and from further away than other properties.
Of the Hudson Yards properties analyzed, Two Manhattan West, which was completed this year, attracted the largest share of frequent, long-distance commuters in August 2024 (15.3%) – defined as employees visiting 10+ times per month from at least 30 miles away. And The Spiral, which opened last year, drew the second-largest share of such on-site workers (12.3%).
Employees in these skyscrapers may prioritize in-person work – or have been encouraged by their employers to return to the office – more than their counterparts in other Hudson Yards buildings. Employees may also choose to come in more frequently to enjoy these properties’ newer and more advanced amenities. And service and shift workers at these properties may also be coming in more frequently to support the buildings’ elevated occupancy.
Diving deeper into the segmentation of on-site employees in the Hudson Yards district provides further insight into this unique on-site workforce.
Analysis of POIs corresponding to several commercial and office hubs in the borough reveals that between August 2019 and August 2024, Hudson Yards’ captured market had the fastest-growing share of employees belonging to STI: Landscape's “Apprentices” segment, which encompasses young, highly-paid professionals in urban settings.
Companies looking to attract young talent have already noticed that these young professionals are receptive to Hudson Yards’ vibrant atmosphere and collaborative spaces, and describe this as a key factor in their choice to lease local offices.
Manhattan is a bastion of commerce, and its strong on-site workforce has helped lead the nation’s post-pandemic office recovery. But the dynamics of the many Manhattan-based workers continues to shift. And as new commercial and residential hubs emerge on the island, workplace trends and the characteristics of employees are almost certain to evolve with them.
The restaurant space has experienced its fair share of challenges in recent years – from pandemic-related closures to rising labor and ingredient costs. Despite these hurdles, the category is holding its own, with total 2024 spending projected to reach $1.1 trillion by the end of the year.
And an analysis of year-over-year (YoY) visitation trends to restaurants nationwide shows that consumers are frequenting dining establishments in growing numbers – despite food-away-from-home prices that remain stubbornly high.
Overall, monthly visits to restaurants were up nearly every month this year compared to the equivalent periods of 2023. Only in January, when inclement weather kept many consumers at home, did restaurants see a significant YoY drop. Throughout the rest of the analyzed period, YoY visits either held steady or grew – showing that Americans are finding room in their budgets to treat themselves to tasty, hassle-free meals.
Still, costs remain elevated and dining preferences have shifted, with consumers prioritizing value and convenience – and restaurants across segments are looking for ways to meet these changing needs. This white paper dives into the data to explore the trends impacting quick-service restaurants (QSR), full-service restaurants (FSR), and fast-casual dining venues – and strategies all three categories are using to stay ahead of the pack.
Overall, the dining sector has performed well in 2024, but a closer look at specific segments within the industry shows that fast-casual restaurants are outperforming both QSR and FSR chains.
Between January and August 2024, visits to fast-casual establishments were up 3.3% YoY, while QSR visits grew by just 0.7%, and FSR visits fell by 0.3% YoY. As eating out becomes more expensive, consumers are gravitating toward dining options that offer better perceived value without compromising on quality. Fast-casual chains, which balance affordability with higher-quality ingredients and experiences, have increasingly become the go-to choice for value-conscious diners.
Fast-casual restaurants also tend to attract a higher-income demographic. Between January and August 2024, fast-casual restaurants drew visitors from Census Block Groups (CBGs) with a weighted median household income of $78.2K – higher than the nationwide median of $76.1K. (The CBGs feeding visits to these restaurants, weighted to reflect the share of visits from each CBG, are collectively referred to as their captured market).
Perhaps unsurprisingly, quick-service restaurants drew visitors from much less affluent areas. But interestingly, despite their pricier offerings, full-service restaurants also drew visitors from CBGs with a median HHI below the nationwide baseline. While fast-casual restaurants likely attract office-goers and other routine diners that can afford to eat out on a more regular basis, FSR chains may serve as special occasion destinations for those with more moderate means.
Though QSR, FSR, and fast-casual spots all seek to provide strong value propositions, dining chains across segments have been forced to raise prices over the past year to offset rising food and labor costs. This next section takes a look at several chains that have succeeded in raising prices without sacrificing visit growth – to explore some of the strategies that have enabled them to thrive.
The fast-casual restaurant space attracts diners that are on the wealthier side – but some establishments cater to even higher earners. One chain of note is NYC-based burger chain Shake Shack, which features a captured market median HHI of $94.3K. In comparison, the typical fast-casual diner comes from areas with a median HHI of $78.2K.
Shake Shack emphasizes high-quality ingredients and prices its offerings accordingly. The chain, which has been expanding its footprint, strategically places its locations in affluent, upscale, and high-traffic neighborhoods – driving foot traffic that consistently surpasses other fast-casual chains. And this elevated foot traffic has continued to impress, even as Shake Shack has raised its prices by 2.5% over the past year.
Steakhouse chain Texas Roadhouse has enjoyed a positive few years, weathering the pandemic with aplomb before moving into an expansion phase. And this year, the chain ranked in the top five for service, food quality, and overall experience by the 2024 Datassential Top 500 Restaurant Chain.
Like Shake Shack, Texas Roadhouse has raised its prices over the past year – three times – while maintaining impressive visit metrics. Between January and August 2024, foot traffic to the steakhouse grew by 9.7% YoY, outpacing visits to the overall FSR segment by wide margins.
This foot traffic growth is fueled not only by expansion but also by the chain's ability to draw traffic during quieter dayparts like weekday afternoons, while at the same time capitalizing on high-traffic times like weekends. Some 27.7% of weekday visits to Texas Roadhouse take place between 3:00 PM and 6:00 PM – compared to just 18.9% for the broader FSR segment – thanks to the chain’s happy hour offerings early dining specials. And 43.3% of visits to the popular steakhouse take place on Saturdays and Sundays, when many diners are increasingly choosing to splurge on restaurant meals, compared to 38.4% for the wider category.
Though rising costs have been on everybody’s minds, summer 2024 may be best remembered as the summer of value – with many quick-service restaurants seeking to counter higher prices by embracing Limited-Time Offers (LTOs). These LTOs offered diners the opportunity to save at the register and get more bang for their buck – while boosting visits at QSR chains across the country.
Limited time offers such as discounted meals and combo offers can encourage frequent visits, and Hardee’s $5.99 "Original Bag" combo, launched in August 2024, did just that. The combo allowed diners to mix and match popular items like the Double Cheeseburger and Hand-Breaded Chicken Tender Wraps, offering both variety and affordability. And visits to the chain during the month of August 2024 were 4.9% higher than Hardee’s year-to-date (YTD) monthly visit average.
August’s LTO also drove up Hardee’s already-impressive loyalty rates. Between May and July 2024, 40.1% to 43.4% of visits came from customers who visited Hardee’s at least three times during the month, likely encouraged by Hardee’s top-ranking loyalty program. But in August, Hardee’s share of loyal visits jumped to 51.5%, highlighting just how receptive many diners are to eating out – as long as they feel they are getting their money’s worth.
McDonald’s launched its own limited-time offer in late June 2024, aimed at providing value to budget-conscious consumers. And the LTO – McDonald’s foray into this summer’s QSR value wars – was such a resounding success that the fast-food leader decided to extend the deal into December.
McDonald’s LTO drove foot traffic to restaurants nationwide. But a closer look at the chain’s regional captured markets shows that the offer resonated particularly well with “Young Urban Singles” – a segment group defined by Spatial.ai's PersonaLive dataset as young singles beginning their careers in trade jobs. McDonald's locations in states where the captured market shares of this demographic surpassed statewide averages by wider margins saw bigger visit boosts in July 2024 – and the correlation was a strong one.
For example, the share of “Young Urban Singles” in McDonald’s Massachusetts captured market was 56.0% higher than the Massachusetts statewide baseline – and the chain saw a 10.6% visit boost in July 2024, compared to the chain's statewide H1 2024 monthly average. But in Florida, where McDonald’s captured markets were over-indexed for “Young Urban Singles” by just 13% compared to the statewide average, foot traffic jumped in July 2024 by a relatively modest 7.3%.
These young, price-conscious consumers, who are receptive to spending their discretionary income on dining out, are not the sole driver of McDonald’s LTO foot traffic success. Still, the promotion’s outsize performance in areas where McDonald’s attracts higher-than-average shares of Young Urban Singles shows that the offering was well-tailored to meet the particular needs and preferences of this key demographic.
While QSR, fast-casual, and FSR chains have largely boosted foot traffic through deals and specials, reputation is another powerful way to attract diners. Restaurants that earn a coveted Michelin Star often see a surge in visits, as was the case for Causa – a Peruvian dining destination in Washington, D.C. The restaurant received its first Michelin Star in November 2023, a major milestone for Chef Carlos Delgado.
The Michelin Star elevated the restaurant's profile, drawing in affluent diners who prioritize exclusivity and are less sensitive to price increases. Since the award, Causa saw its share of the "Power Elite" segment group in its captured market increase from 24.7% to 26.6%. Diners were also more willing to travel for the opportunity to partake in the Causa experience: In the six months following the award, some 40.3% of visitors to the restaurant came from more than ten miles away, compared to just 30.3% in the six months prior.
These data points highlight the power of a Michelin Star to increase a restaurant’s draw and attract more affluent audiences – allowing it to raise prices without losing its core clientele. Wealthier diners often seek unique culinary experiences, where price is less of a concern, making these establishments more resilient to inflation than more venues that serve more price-sensitive customers.
Dining preferences continue to evolve as restaurants adapt to a rapidly changing culinary landscape. From the rise in fast-casual dining to the benefits of limited-time offers, the analyzed restaurant categories are determining how to best reach their target audiences. By staying up-to-date with what people are eating, these restaurant categories can hope to continue bringing customers through the door.
The COVID-19 pandemic – and the subsequent shift to remote work – has fundamentally redefined where and how people live and work, creating new opportunities for smaller cities to thrive.
But where are relocators going in 2024 – and what are they looking for? This post dives into the data for several CBSAs with populations ranging from 500K to 2.5 million that have seen positive net domestic migration over the past several years – where population inflow outpaces outflow. Who is moving to these hubs, and what is drawing them?
The past few years have seen a shift in where people are moving. While major metropolitan areas like New York still attract newcomers, smaller cities, which offer a balance of affordability, livability, and career opportunities, are becoming attractive alternatives for those looking to relocate.
Between July 2020 and July 2024, for example, the Austin-Round Rock-Georgetown, TX CBSA, saw net domestic migration of 3.6% – not surprising, given the city of Austin’s ranking among U.S. News and World Report’s top places to live in 2024-5. Raleigh-Cary, NC, which also made the list, experienced net population inflow of 2.6%. And other metro areas, including Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers, AR (3.3%), Des Moines-West Des Moines, IA (1.4%), Oklahoma City, OK (1.1%), and Madison, WI (0.6%) have seen more domestic relocators moving in than out over the past four years.
All of these CBSAs have also continued to see positive net migration over the past 12 months – highlighting their continued appeal into 2024.
What is driving domestic migration to these hubs? While these metropolitan areas span various regions of the country, they share a common characteristic: They all attract residents coming, on average, from CBSAs with younger and less affluent populations.
Between July 2020 and July 2024, for example, relocators to high-income Raleigh, NC – where the median household income (HHI) stands at $84K – tended to hail from CBSAs with a significantly lower weighted median HHI ($66.9K). Similarly, those moving to Austin, TX – where the median HHI is $85.4K – tended to come from regions with a median HHI of $69.9K. This pattern suggests that these cities offer newcomers an aspirational leap in both career and financial prospects.
Moreover, most of these CBSAs are drawing residents with a younger weighted median age than that of their existing residents, reinforcing their appeal as destinations for those still establishing and growing their careers. Des Moines and Oklahoma City, in particular, saw the largest gaps between the median age of newcomers and that of the existing population.
Career opportunities and affordable housing are major drivers of migration, and data from Niche’s Neighborhood Grades suggests that these CBSAs attract newcomers due to their strong performance in both areas. All of the analyzed CBSAs had better "Jobs" and "Housing" grades compared to the regions from which people migrated. For example, Austin, Texas received the highest "Jobs" rating with an A-, while most new arrivals came from areas where the "Jobs" grade was a B.
While the other analyzed CBSAs showed smaller improvements in job ratings, the combination of improvements in both “Jobs” and “Housing” make them appealing destinations for those seeking better economic opportunities and affordability.
Young professionals may be more open than ever to living in smaller metro areas, offering opportunities for cities like Austin and Raleigh to thrive. And the demographic analysis of newcomers to these CBSAs underscores their appeal to individuals seeking job opportunities and upward mobility.
Will these CBSAs continue to attract newcomers and cement their status as vibrant, opportunity-rich hubs for young professionals? And how will this new mix of population impact these growing markets?
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