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Consumers continue to prioritize health and wellness, putting the fitness space in a strong position even as economic headwinds and value-seeking shape discretionary spending. With 2026 now underway – and the industry’s peak sign-up season in motion – we took a closer look at Planet Fitness, one of the category’s largest players, alongside broader fitness trends to put our finger on the pulse of fitness in 2026.
Through most of 2025, Planet Fitness – and the fitness category as a whole – maintained YoY monthly visit growth. February 2025 marked the lone dip in visits for both Planet Fitness and the broader category, likely driven by inclement weather that temporarily kept some consumers out of gyms.
And Planet Fitness’ growth outpaced the wider category nearly every month, with the chain's momentum likely reflecting continued expansion – part of its multi-year growth strategy. Planet Fitness’ average visits per location were also up YoY – aligned with overall category levels – suggesting new gyms are meeting incremental demand rather than redistributing existing traffic.
In January 2026, Planet Fitness continued to experience visit growth, perhaps as New Year’s resolution-driven sign-ups helped lift traffic. Combined with the chain’s ongoing unit expansion, this dynamic could support continued gains as the brand moves further into 2026.
Planet Fitness’ recent gains may also reflect a broader shift within the fitness landscape toward low-priced membership models.
The chart below shows that since at least the start of 2024, visits to budget-friendly gym chains (monthly fees under $30) such as Planet Fitness have consistently outpaced those to mid-tier ($30-$60) and premium competitors ($60+).
But the divergence became more pronounced beginning in early 2025, when traffic growth of premium fitness chains fell off sharply while low-priced gyms continued to see visits accelerate. In a retail environment defined by heightened price sensitivity and value-seeking, lower-cost memberships appear to be resonating with consumers looking to manage discretionary spending while higher-cost concepts face mounting pressure.
Moreover, once a gym membership is paid for, price-conscious consumers could be leaning more heavily into fitness visits as a way to spend time outside the home without opening their wallets – especially as other “going out” activities have become more expensive.
As the fitness industry moves through the early months of 2026, one of the most telling indicators to watch is visitor frequency. During the peak sign-up season, this metric offers an early read on member engagement – and on whether new joiners are building habits that support longer-term retention.
In January 2026, visitor frequency to Planet Fitness held steady, even as several other analyzed gym chains saw slight declines. The dip elsewhere may be partly attributable to Storm Fern, which likely disrupted routines and temporarily curtailed gym visits across affected regions. Against that backdrop, Planet Fitness’ stable frequency stands out as a relative bright spot.
Still, with resolution-driven sign-ups typically extending through much of Q1, it may be too early to draw firm conclusions about full-year performance. As weather-related effects fade and new members settle into routines, frequency trends over the coming months should offer clearer insight into how the category – and Planet Fitness in particular – is positioned for the rest of 2026.
Planet Fitness’ ability to grow visits, sustain per-location demand, and hold visitor frequency steady early in 2026 suggests the brand is benefiting from both internal strategy and favorable category-level tailwinds. While it remains early in the year, the underlying trends indicate that low-cost fitness models, and Planet Fitness in particular, are well-positioned as consumers prioritize cost-effective ways to stay active.
Which gyms will grow in 2026? Visit Placer.ai/anchor to find out.
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.
Super Bowl LX kicked off on Sunday, February 8th at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, but celebrations across the Bay Area – from fan festivals and concerts to immersive cultural activations – began well before game day.
An AI-powered analysis of two marquee Super Bowl week events – the Ferry Building Projection Show and Chris Stapleton’s concert at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium – highlights the role pre-game attractions played in extending the championship into a multi-day driver of regional foot traffic.
Between February 5th and 7th – the three nights leading up to the Super Bowl – San Francisco’s iconic Ferry Building became the canvas for a large-scale projection show celebrating 60 years of Super Bowl history. Comparing evening visits during the installation to the nightly average since January 1st, 2025 highlights the magnitude of the crowds drawn downtown for the spectacle.
The Ferry Building is no stranger to major surges in visitation tied to visual events. On July 4th, 2025, visits to the area were 217.5% above the daily average as fireworks lit up the Bay, while New Year’s Eve drove an even larger spike of 336.9%. Other recent activations – including a drone light show on October 8th and the multi-day “Let’s Glow SF” installation from December 5th to 14th – also generated noticeable visit increases.
But, the pre-Super Bowl Projection Show stood apart. Evening visits to the Ferry Building spiked by 141.6% on the first night of the installation and by 265.7% on the second. On the eve of the Super Bowl, February 7th, visits surged 479.1% above the nightly average, surpassing every other evening visit peak observed over the previous twelve months. This shows that the event was not only visually compelling, but also exceptionally effective at drawing crowds into the city core during Super Bowl week.
While the Ferry Building Projection Show was a major draw in its own right, many attendees treated it as just one stop on a broader evening itinerary.
Location intelligence shows that 18.2% of visitors to the projection show also made an evening visit to Moscone Center, home of the Super Bowl LX Experience between February 3rd and 7th. Other popular destinations included Pier 39, Ghirardelli Square, and the Fillmore Shopping District – all well-established tourist and retail corridors.
Regional indoor shopping centers also benefited from an influx of visitors. Serramonte Center and Stonestown Galleria ranked among the more common evening stops for projection show attendees, a pattern that could suggest travelers sought warm, indoor environments for dining and shopping after spending time along the waterfront.
Taken together, the data indicates that Super Bowl-themed activations drove visit spikes while generating spillover benefits for a diverse mix of retail, dining, and entertainment destinations across the Bay Area.
Among Super Bowl week’s most anticipated and in-demand ticketed events was Chris Stapleton’s concert at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium on February 7th.
With limited ticket availability and a premium price-tag, the concert drew a notably affluent audience. On the day of the show, households classified as “Ultra Wealthy Families” accounted for 45.5% of the venue’s captured market, compared to 23.5% across the prior twelve months. Similarly, households earning more than $175K represented 46.5% of the venue’s captured market on concert day, well above the 34.9% average observed over the previous year. These shifts demonstrate the robust demand for exclusive Super Bowl week experiences among higher-income music fans.
But affluence alone only tells part of the story. Using location intelligence to examine visitor journeys offers clearer insight into the concert’s audience – whether it skewed local or was bolstered by visiting Super Bowl guests.
Trade area analysis reveals that 36.6% of visitors to the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium on the day of the show traveled between 10 and 30 miles – a higher share than usual for the venue, indicating stronger representation from the extended Bay Area.
At the same time, the event also drew a meaningful influx of long-distance travelers. Visitors coming from more than 250 miles away accounted for 12.9% of concertgoers on February 7th, up from 8.0% over the previous twelve months. This increase suggests that many Super Bowl tourists incorporated the high-profile live show into their itineraries, reinforcing the role of major concerts as drivers of valuable traffic during destination sporting events.
For civic leaders, major activations like these highlight how strategic programming can amplify the regional impact of tentpole sporting events – generating surges in visitation and meaningful spillover to retail corridors, entertainment districts, and shopping centers.
For more data-driven civic 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.
Wingstop closed out Q4 2025 with soft same-store traffic but a clearly defined strategic trajectory. While same-store visits remained under pressure, performance in Dallas – the brand’s most mature market – suggests that improvements in operational efficiency could play a central role in unlocking Wingstop’s next phase of growth.
Wingstop continued to expand its physical footprint in Q4 2025, driving total chain-wide traffic up 1.0% year over year (YoY) for the quarter and 4.5% for 2025 as a whole. At the same time, same-store traffic remained soft, extending a pattern that persisted throughout the second half of the year.
Some of that pressure reflects a challenging baseline comparison. Wingstop is lapping an unusually strong 2024, when domestic same-store sales surged nearly 20% YoY – setting a high bar for subsequent growth. The decline in same-store visits also aligns with the brand’s deliberate shift toward off-premise occasions: By Q3 2025, 72.8% of Wingstop’s sales were digital, underscoring the brand’s evolution into a tech-led, delivery-forward concept.
Still, looking more closely at Wingstop’s Dallas, TX market – home to the majority of its company-owned restaurants – offers a compelling signal for how the brand can reverse recent traffic trends. In 2025 earnings calls, management repeatedly pointed to Dallas as a top performer, attributing its resilience to the early integration of the chain’s AI-powered Smart Kitchen platform.
Piloted in Dallas before its nationwide rollout in late 2025, the AI-powered system is designed to optimize throughput and accuracy to deliver a more consistent pickup experience. And location analytics appear to support management’s view: In Q4 2025, 44.5% of Wingstop visits in the Dallas DMA lasted under ten minutes, compared to 40.8% nationwide.
Comparing YoY performance for shorter and longer visits to Wingstop – both in Dallas and nationwide – further highlights the growing importance of speed of service. In Q4 2025, visits lasting under ten minutes increased YoY on a per-location basis nationwide, with even stronger gains in Dallas, while longer visits continued to lag.
Crucially, although Dallas was not immune to the broader pressures weighing on longer visits, its YoY decline was notably less severe than the national trend. This divergence suggests that, beyond reducing wait times, the faster and more accurate service enabled by the Smart Kitchen platform may be contributing to a stronger overall visitor experience.
Location analytics suggest that operational improvements and faster service are beginning to translate into stronger traffic for Wingstop. And with the chain’s new loyalty platform set to launch nationwide later this year the brand may be poised for renewed same-store momentum.
For more data-driven dining insights, follow 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.
The return to office was put to the test last month as a slew of new RTO mandates took effect – coinciding with the late-January arrival of Winter Storm Fern. With policies pulling in one direction and weather disruptions pulling in the other, how were offices impacted on the ground?
January 2026 delivered a reminder that return-to-office progress is anything but linear – but it is still gaining ground. Despite Winter Storm Fern disrupting travel and commutes across large parts of the country toward the end of the month, office attendance continued its gradual recovery. Visits to the Nationwide Office Index were 38.3% below January 2019 levels, a modest improvement from January 2025, when a Polar Vortex similarly inhibited commutes.
And while total monthly visits came in slightly below January 2024 levels, adjusting for the number of working days reveals a more encouraging picture. On a per-working-day basis, January 2026 was the busiest in-office January since COVID – no small feat in a month when ice and snow covered large swaths of the contiguous U.S. for several days. The fact that offices were generally fuller than in prior Januaries, even amid widespread disruptions, points to a robust underlying RTO trajectory.
Fern’s influence becomes clearer, however, when zooming in on individual metros. Cities that avoided the worst of the storm generally posted stronger year-over-year (YoY) gains, while heavily impacted markets saw flatter or negative results. Miami, for example, continued to record YoY increases, while New York City – hit hard by Fern – saw visits edge down 0.3% YoY.
Last year’s winter conditions also played a meaningful role in YoY comparisons. Both Dallas and Houston were affected by Fern this January, though Dallas bore the brunt of the storm, with snow, ice, travel disruptions, and flight cancellations contributing to a 6.7% YoY drop in office visits. Houston, by contrast, experienced more limited disruption in January 2026 and posted a YoY increase – in part because it was lapping the January 2025 Gulf Coast Blizzard, which saw rare snow accumulations effectively shut the city down. In other words, Houston’s biggest weather-related disruption occurred last winter, while Dallas faced a more acute shock this year.
Washington, D.C.’s 3.2% YoY uptick and Atlanta’s 9.1% gain similarly reflect comparisons to January 2025, when both markets were hampered by extreme winter weather. But these rebounds also point to underlying recovery momentum – especially for Atlanta, which, despite being impacted by Fern, ranked third among the analyzed cities for post-pandemic office recovery.
Meanwhile, West Coast markets that were largely spared severe winter conditions posted the strongest year-over-year gains. Los Angeles and San Francisco led the pack, with YoY increases of 15.6% and 10.9%, respectively.
In today’s hybrid workplace, weather disruptions have become an increasingly accepted reason to skip the commute and work from home. And as a result, January – one of the most weather-prone months of the year – has emerged as a softer period for office attendance, regardless of broader RTO momentum.
Still, when adjusting for the number of working days, office visits this January marked a meaningful improvement over last year – further evidence that return-to-office progress continues to move steadily forward.
For more data-driven office recovery analyses, visit Placer.ai/anchor.
The fast casual space has become an increasingly competitive battleground for share-of-stomach as price-sensitive consumers trade down to lower-cost food channels. Against this backdrop, CAVA and sweetgreen offer a timely case study in resilience. Both brands continue to expand their footprints and diversify their audiences while leaning on loyalty programs and menu innovation to sustain growth during a volatile period for the dining sector. Using AI-powered location analytics, we uncover how macroeconomic pressures have shaped foot traffic trends to both chains and explore the strategies helping to keep them on a positive growth trajectory.
CAVA and sweetgreen continue to pursue aggressive expansion strategies, contributing to the overall visit growth of both brands. But while CAVA showed relative stability in both overall visits and same-store performance in H2 2025, sweetgreen experienced softer year-over-year (YoY) visit growth and moderate same-store visit declines in most months – raising the possibility of emerging “bowl fatigue.”
In Q4 2025, CAVA posted 16.6% YoY visit growth, with loyalty program enhancements and a holiday campaign likely helping to sustain visits.
Sweetgreen’s 4.4% visit growth in Q4 2025 was moderate by comparison, although December stood out for delivering positive YoY visits and same-store visits. This boost may have been driven by the value-focused $10 Harvest Bowl promotion alongside continued adoption of the brand’s refreshed loyalty program.
For both chains, revamped loyalty programs and continued expansion may set the stage for growth in the year ahead.
Even as refreshed loyalty programs and expansion act as growth levers, both chains have recently called out a shared headwind – softer engagement among Gen Z and Millennial diners amid sustained financial pressure on younger consumers.
However, AI-powered captured market analysis combined with the Spatial.ai: PersonaLive dataset suggests early signs of renewed momentum. In Q4 2025, both chains saw an increased share of visitors from the “Young Urban Singles” segment – a cohort that skews heavily Gen Z and Millennial – compared to Q4 2024. And sweetgreen saw growth in its “Educated Urbanites” segment – another cohort that skews heavily Gen Z and Millennial, and which makes up a large share of the chain’s captured market. These shifts could indicate that both brands reclaimed some younger traffic toward the end of the year.
At the same time, both brands saw broader audience diversification within their captured markets. Sweetgreen increased its share of “Wealthy Suburban Families”, while CAVA saw gains among “Upper Suburban Diverse Families” and “Near-Urban Diverse Families”. This suggests that growth among older and more financially stable segments is likely helping to offset some of the pullback from younger diners.
And while some of CAVA and sweetgreen’s suburban and near-urban audience gains likely reflect both chains’ continued unit expansion beyond urban cores, the rise in young urban traffic indicates that strategic initiatives are resonating with traditional audiences. Menu innovation and tools that give diners greater control over nutritional inputs – particularly offerings aligned with protein-forward trends – may be helping to re-engage young urban diners.
As consumer budgets remain under pressure, CAVA and sweetgreen illustrate that sustaining momentum in today’s dining landscape requires a deliberate, multi-pronged strategy. Thoughtful real estate decisions can expand a brand’s consumer base while innovation and loyalty programs keep existing audiences engaged.
The broader industry takeaway is clear: brands that deepen relevance across multiple consumer segments may be best positioned to compete for share-of-stomach in the months ahead.
Which restaurant brands will succeed in 2026? Visit Placer.ai/anchor to find out.
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.
Malls started the year on a strong note, with year-over-year traffic increases across all three mall formats. Open-air shopping centers received the largest gains, with visits up 6.2% compared to January 2025. Indoor malls, which outperformed the other formats for much of 2025, also posted solid growth of 4.5% YoY – a notable result given their already strong performance last January. Even outlet malls, which struggled to maintain growth momentum for most of 2025, saw a 3.6% increase in visits – perhaps suggesting that consumers are entering 2026 more willing to return to discretionary shopping destinations after a cautious 2025.
A closer look at the data suggests that a meaningful share of last month’s mall traffic may have been driven by post-holiday retail returns. There is some evidence that return activity was higher this January than in January 2025, and the timing of visits supports this interpretation.
Mall traffic was heavily front-loaded to the first two weeks of the year – consistent with the post-holiday returns window – with visit growth already beginning to moderate during the third week of January. (The more pronounced decline in traffic observed in the final week of the month was likely driven by the impact of Winter Storm Fern, which weighed on visits across all mall formats).
Visit duration patterns further support the idea that increased returns activity drove much of January’s mall traffic surge – the largest gains were concentrated in short visits, with trips lasting 10 minutes or less increasing by double digits across all mall formats.
At the same time, the data also shows year-over-year growth in longer visits, indicating that higher-quality, more engaged mall trips increased in January 2026 as well. So while post-holiday returns clearly played a role in driving January foot traffic, the simultaneous growth in longer trips suggests that shoppers were also spending time browsing or making additional purchases.
As 2026 unfolds, this blend of efficiency and engagement will be a key dynamic to watch: consumers appear increasingly willing to re-enter physical retail spaces, but they remain intentional about how they shop. Mall formats that can seamlessly support quick, frictionless visits while also encouraging extended dwell time may be best positioned to capture both sides of evolving consumer behavior in the year ahead.
For more data-driven retail 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.
The positive retail momentum observed in Q1 2024 continued into Q2 – as stabilizing prices and a strong job market fostered cautious optimism among consumers. Year-over-year (YoY) retail foot traffic remained elevated throughout the quarter, with June in particular seeing significant weekly visit boosts ranging from 4.7% to 8.5%.
The robustness of the retail sector in Q2 was also highlighted by positive visit growth during the quarter’s special calendar occasions, including Mother’s Day (the week of May 6th) and Memorial Day (the week of May 27th). And though consumer spending may moderate as the year wears on, retail’s strong Q2 showing offers plenty of room for optimism ahead of back-to-school sales and other summer milestones.
On a quarterly basis, overall retail visits rose 4.2% in Q2. And diving into specific categories shows that value continued to reign supreme, with discount and dollar stores seeing the most robust YoY visit growth (11.2%) of any analyzed category.
Other essential goods purveyors, such as grocery store chains (7.6%) and superstores (4.6%), also outperformed the overall retail baseline. And fitness – a category deemed essential by many health-conscious consumers – outpaced overall retail with a substantial 6.0% YoY foot traffic increase.
The decidedly more discretionary home improvement industry performed less well than overall retail in Q2 – but in another sign of consumer resilience, it too experienced a YoY visit uptick. And overall restaurant foot traffic increased 2.6% YoY.
Discount and dollar stores enjoyed a strong Q2 2024, maintaining YoY visit growth above 10.0% for six out of the quarter’s 13 weeks. Only during the week of April 1st did the category see a temporary decline, likely the result of an Easter calendar shift. (The week of April 1st 2024 is being compared to the week of April 3rd, 2023, which included the run-up to Easter)
Some of this growth can be attributed to the continued expansion of segment leaders like Dollar General. But the category has also been bolstered by the emphasis consumers continue to place on value in the face of still-high prices and economic uncertainty.
Dollar General, which has been expanding both its store count and its grocery offerings, saw YoY visits increase between 9.1% and 15.9% throughout the quarter. Affordable-indulgence-oriented Five Below, which has also been adding locations at a brisk clip, saw YoY visits increase between 4.9% and 18.8%.
And though Dollar Tree has taken steps to rightsize its Family Dollar brand, the company’s eponymous banner – which caters to middle-income consumers in suburban areas – continued to grow both its store count and its visits in Q2.
Grocery store chains also performed well in Q2 2024 – experiencing strongly positive foot traffic growth throughout the quarter. Though the sector continues to face its share of challenges, stabilizing food-at-home prices and improvements in employee retention and supply chain management have helped propel the industry forward.
Diving into the performance of specific chains shows that within the grocery segment, too, price was paramount in Q2 2024 – with limited-assortment value grocery stores like Aldi and Trader Joe’s leading the way.
Traditional chains H-E-B and Food Lion (owned by Ahold Delhaize) – both of which are known for relatively low prices – outperformed the wider grocery sector with respective YoY foot traffic boosts of 11.4% and 8.7%. But ShopRite, Safeway (owned by Albertsons), Kroger, and Albertsons also drew more visits in Q2 2024 than in the equivalent period of last year.
Fitness has proven to be relatively inflation-proof in recent years – thriving even in the face of reduced discretionary spending and consumer cutbacks. Indeed, rising prices may have actually helped boost gym attendance, as people sought to squeeze the most value out of their monthly fees and replace pricy outings with already-paid-for gym excursions.
And despite lapping a remarkably strong 2023, visits to gyms nationwide remained elevated YoY in Q2 2024.
Diving into the data for some of the nation’s leading gyms shows that today’s fitness market has plenty of room at the top. Planet Fitness, 24 Hour Fitness, Life Time Fitness, Orangetheory Fitness, and LA Fitness all experienced YoY visit growth in Q2 2024 – reflecting consumers’ enduring interest in all things wellness-related.
But it was EōS Fitness and Crunch Fitness – two value gyms that have been pursuing aggressive expansion strategies – that really hit it out of the park, with respective YoY foot traffic increases of 23.4% and 21.4%.
The week of April 1st saw a decline in YoY visits to superstores – likely attributable to the Easter calendar shift noted above. But the category quickly rallied, and with back-to-school shopping and major superstore sales events coming up this July, the category appears poised to enjoy continued success throughout the summer.
Within the superstore category, wholesale clubs continued to stand out – with Costco Wholesale, Sam’s Club and BJ’s Wholesale Club enjoying YoY foot traffic growth ranging from 12.0% to 7.4%. But Target and Walmart also impressed with 4.6% and 4.0% YoY visit increases.
Inflation, elevated interest rates, and a sluggish real estate market have created a perfect storm for the home improvement industry, with spending on renovations in decline. The accelerated return to office has likely also taken its toll on the category, as people spend more time outside the home and have less availability to immerse themselves in DIY projects.
But despite these challenges, weekly YoY foot traffic to home improvement and furnishing chains remained elevated throughout much of the Q2 – with June and April seeing mostly positive YoY visit growth, and May hovering just below 2023 levels. This (modest) visit growth may be driven by consumers loading up on supplies for necessary home repairs, or by shoppers seeking materials for smaller projects. And given the importance of Q2 for the home improvement sector, this largely positive snapshot may offer some promise of good things to come.
Some chains within the home improvement category continued to perform especially well in Q2 2024 – with rapidly expanding, budget-oriented Harbor Freight Tools leading the pack. But Ace Hardware, Menards, The Home Depot, and Lowe’s also saw foot traffic increases in Q2, showcasing the category’s resilience in the face of headwinds.
Restaurants – including full-service restaurants (FSR), quick-service restaurants (QSR), fast-casual chains, and coffee chains – lagged behind grocery stores and other essential goods retailers in Q2 2024, as price-sensitive consumers prioritized needs over wants and ate at home more often.
Still, YoY restaurant foot traffic remained up throughout most of the quarter. And impressively, the sector saw a YoY visit uptick during the week of Mother’s Day (the week of May 6th, 2024, compared to the week of May 8th, 2023) – an important milestone for FSR.
The restaurant industry’s YoY visit growth was felt across segments – though fast-casual and coffee chains experienced the biggest visit boosts. Like in Q1 2024, fast-casual restaurants hit the sweet spot between indulgence and affordability, outpacing QSR in the wake of fast food price hikes. And building on the positive YoY trendline that began to emerge last quarter, full-service restaurants finished Q2 2024 with a 1.4% YoY visit uptick.
Chain expansion was the name of the restaurant game in Q2 2024, with several chains that have been growing their footprints outperforming segment averages – including CAVA, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Ziggi’s Coffee, California-based Philz Coffee, Raising Cane’s, Whataburger, and First Watch. Chili’s Grill and Bar also outpaced the full-service category average, aided by the revamping of its “3 for Me” menu.
Retailers and restaurants in Q2 2024 continued to face plenty of challenges, from inflation to rising labor costs and volatile consumer confidence. But foot traffic trends across industries – including both essential goods purveyors like grocery stores and more discretionary categories like home improvement and restaurants – suggest plenty of room for cautious optimism as 2024 wears on.
Return-to-office (RTO) trends have been closely watched over the past few years, with relevant stakeholders trying to puzzle out the impact remote and hybrid work have had on business operations and worker performance. And while visits to office buildings, overall, remain below pre-pandemic levels, office recovery varies from city to city – reflecting the complex and nuanced nature of regional economic trends, workforce preferences, and industry-specific needs.
This white paper harnesses location analytics to explore office recovery in the country’s second-largest economy – Los Angeles. The first part of the report is based on an analysis of foot traffic data from Placer.ai’s Los Angeles Office Index – an index comprising 100 office buildings in LA (including several in the greater metro area). The second part of the report broadens the lens to analyze visits by local employees to points of interest (POIs) corresponding to four major LA-area office districts: Century City, Downtown LA, Santa Monica, and Culver City. The white paper examines the impact that return-to-work mandates have had on visits to office buildings, discovers which demographic groups are driving the RTO, and explores the connection between commute time and return-to-office rates.
The return to office in Los Angeles has consistently lagged behind other major cities, underperforming nationwide recovery levels since the pandemic ground in-office work to a virtual halt. Still, the city’s office buildings are seeing a steady increase in visits, with foot traffic tending to spike at the beginning of each year. This indicates that even though office visits in LA are still below national averages, they are on a steady growth trajectory – a promising sign for stakeholders in the city.
A closer examination of Los Angeles office buildings also shows that despite the overall lag, some top-performing buildings in the LA metro area are defying the odds. Visits to the 20 local office buildings with the narrowest Q2 2024 post-COVID visit gaps were down just 8.7% in June 2024 compared to January 2019 – significantly outperforming the nationwide average.
So while overall office recovery in the city is still behind nationwide trends, these top-performing buildings indicate an optimistic outlook for the city’s office spaces.
Diving into the demographics of visitors to LA’s top-performing office buildings reveals an important insight: these buildings are attracting younger workers. This cohort has shown a stronger preference for in-person work compared to their older colleagues.
Analyzing the buildings’ captured markets with psychographics from AGS: Panorama reveals that these buildings are attracting visitors from areas with larger shares of "Emerging Leaders" and "Young Coastal Technocrats" than the broader metro area.
"Emerging Leaders'' – upper-middle-class professionals in early stages of their careers – make up 20.3% of households in the trade areas feeding visits to these top-performing buildings, compared to 14.9% in the broader LA CBSA. Similarly, "Young Coastal Technocrats," young and highly educated professionals in tech and professional services, account for 14.7% of households driving visits to the top-performing buildings, compared to only 12.1% in the broader area.
The trend suggests that companies in these high-performing office buildings employ many early-career professionals eager to accelerate their careers and work in-person with colleagues and mentors. This is a positive sign for the future of the office market in the LA metro area, indicating that it is attractive to key demographic groups that are likely to drive future growth and innovation.
Over the past few years, the debate regarding return-to-office mandates has been a heated one. Will employees follow return-to-office requirements? Can companies enforce the return to office after offering remote and hybrid work options? Recent location analytics data suggests that, at least in the Los Angeles metro area, some return-to-office mandates have been effective.
Three major tech companies – Activision Blizzard, TikTok, and SNAP Inc. – recently made their return-to-office policies stricter. Activision mandated a full return to the office in January 2024. TikTok has also intensified its return-to-office policy while seeking to expand its office presence in the greater Los Angeles area. And SNAP Inc. required employees to return to the office earlier this year as a condition of continued employment.
Visitation patterns at each of these companies' respective headquarters suggest that their policies have directly impacted visit frequency. Since the beginning of the year, the share of repeat office visits (defined as two or more visits per week) has increased for all three locations. Activision saw its share of repeat office visits grow from 52.1% in H1 2023 to 61.4% in the same period of 2024. TikTok’s repeat visits grew from 49.5% to 61.0%, and SNAP’s repeat visits increased from 36.6% to 42.8%.
These numbers highlight how return-to-office policies can lead to noticeable changes in office visit patterns and offer a blueprint to other businesses looking to foster a stronger in-office workforce.
Los Angeles is the second-largest metro area in the country, with several distinct business districts across its sprawling landscape. And a closer look at four major office hubs in the greater LA area – Century City, Downtown LA, Santa Monica, and Culver City – highlights how the office recovery can vary, not just by city or demographic, but on a neighborhood level.
Weekday visits by local employees to all four analyzed business districts have rebounded significantly since 2020 – though each area has followed its own particular trajectory.
Culver City, home to major businesses including Sony Pictures and Disney Digital Network, saw the least pronounced drop in employee visits during the early days of the pandemic. And in Q2 2024, weekday visits by local workers were down just 18.4% compared to Q1 2019.
Century City, on the other hand, saw the most marked drop in local employee foot traffic as the pandemic set in. But the district’s recovery trajectory has also been the most dramatic – with a Q2 2024 visit gap of just 28.5%, smaller than Downtown LA’s 29.7% visit gap. Perhaps capitalizing on this momentum, Century City is expanding its business district with the addition of a major new office building, set to be completed in 2026 and serve as the headquarters for Creative Artists Agency. Santa Monica, for its part, finished off Q2 2024 with a 23.3% visit gap.
Century City stands out within the Los Angeles metropolitan area for its dramatic decline and subsequent resurgence in local employee foot traffic. And looking at another metric of office recovery – employee commute distance – further underscores the district’s remarkable comeback.
The share of employees commuting to Century City from three to seven miles away has nearly returned to pre-COVID levels – suggesting a normalization of commuting patterns by local workers living in the area. In H1 2019, 33.5% of workers in Century City commuted between 3 and 7 miles to work; in 2022, that number had dropped to 29.8%. But by 2024, the share of visitors making that commute had grown to 32.5% – much closer to pre-COVID numbers.
Similarly, the region’s trade area size, which had contracted significantly in the wake of the pandemic, bounced back significantly in 2024. This serves as another indication of Century City’s rebound, cementing Century City’s status as a key business hub within the Los Angeles metropolitan area.
Five years after the upheaval caused by the pandemic, office spaces are still changing. Although the Los Angeles area has taken longer to recover than other major cities, analyzing local visitation data shows significant potential for the city’s business areas. With young employees leading the return-to-office charge, the city is poised to keep driving its strong economy and adjust to an evolving office environment.
Retail media networks (RMNs) have cemented their roles as the future – and present – of advertising. These networks enable advertisers to promote products and services through a retailer’s online properties and physical stores, when consumers are close to the point-of-purchase and primed to buy.
Today, we take a closer look at two newcomers to the retail media space: Costco Wholesale and Wawa. Both chains have an online presence – but both also excel at in-store experiences, offering unique opportunities for consumer engagement and exposure to new products.
This white paper dives into the data to explore some of the key advantages Costco and Wawa bring to the retail media table – and examine how the retailers’ physical reach can best be leveraged to help advertising partners find new audiences.
Wawa and Costco, the latest additions to the growing number of companies with retail media networks, exhibit significant advertising potential. Both brands boast a wide reach and diverse customer base, and both have access to troves of customer data through membership and loyalty programs.
Foot traffic data confirms the robust offline positioning of the two retailers. In Q1 2024, year-over-year (YoY) visits to Costco and Wawa increased 9.5% and 7.5% respectively – showing that their in-store engagement is on a growth trajectory.
And since consumers tend to spend a lot more time in-store than they do on retailers’ websites, Costco’s and Wawa’s strong brick-and-mortar growth positions them especially well to help advertisers reach new customers. In Q1 2024, the average visits to Costco’s and Wawa’s physical stores lasted 37.4 and 11.4 minutes respectively – compared to just 6.7 and 4.6 minutes for the chains’ websites. These longer in-store dwell times can be harnessed to maximize ad exposure and offer partners more extended opportunities for meaningful interactions with customers. Partners can also analyze the behavior and preferences of the two chains’ growing visitor bases to craft targeted online campaigns.
Costco’s retail media network will tap into the on- and offline shopping habits of its staggering 74.5 million members to inform targeted advertising by partners. And the retailer’s tremendous reach offers a significant opportunity to engage customers in-store.
But while Costco is dominant in some areas of the country, other markets are led by competitors like Sam’s Club and BJ’s Wholesale Club. And advertisers looking to choose between competing RMNs or hone in on the areas where Costco is strongest can analyze Costco's performance and visit share – on a local or national level – to determine where to focus their efforts.
An analysis of the share of visits to wholesalers across the country reveals that Costco is the dominant wholesale membership club in much of the Western United States. But Costco also captures the largest share of wholesale club visits in many other major population centers, including important markets like New York, Chicago, Phoenix, and San Antonio. Costco’s widespread brick-and-mortar dominance offers prospective advertising partners a significant opportunity to connect with regional audiences in a wide array of key markets.
Another one of Costco’s key advantages as a retail media provider lies in its highly loyal and engaged audience. In May 2024, a whopping 41.4% of Costco’s visitors frequented the club at least twice during the month – compared to 36.6% for Sam’s Club and 36.0% for BJ’s Wholesale.
Moreover, Costco led in average visit duration compared to its competitors. In May 2024, customers spent an average of 37.1 minutes at Costco – surpassing even the impressive dwell times at Sam’s Club and BJ’s Wholesale Club.
YoY visits per location to Costco, too, were the highest of the analyzed wholesalers, all three of which saw YoY increases. These metrics further establish the wholesaler’s position as an effective retail media provider.
Even when foot traffic doesn't show a brand’s clear regional dominance, location analytics can reveal other metrics that signal its unique potential. Take the Richmond-Petersburg, VA, designated market area (DMA), for example. In May 2024, BJ’s Wholesale Club led the DMA with 41.2% of wholesale club visits, while Costco was a close second with 37.3% of visits.
But despite BJ’s lead in visit share, Costco's Richmond audience was more affluent. Costco's visitors came from trade areas with a median household income (HHI) of $93.2K/year, compared to $73.1K/year for Sam’s Club and $89.5K/year for BJ’s. Additionally, Costco drew a higher share of weekday visits than its counterparts.
Analyzing shopper habits and preferences across chains on a local level can provide crucial context for strategists working on media campaigns. Advertisers can partner with the brands most likely to attract consumers interested in their offerings, and identify where – and when – to focus their advertising efforts.
Convenience stores, or c-stores, are emerging as destinations in and of themselves – and their rising popularity among a wider-than-ever swath of consumers opens up significant opportunities in the retail advertising space.
Wawa is a relative newcomer to the world of retail media, after other c-stores like 7-Eleven and Casey’s launched their networks in 2022 and 2023. But despite coming a bit late to the party, the potential for Wawa’s Goose Media Network is significant – thanks to a cadre of highly loyal visitors who enjoy the physical shopping experience the c-store chain offers.
In May 2024, Wawa’s share of loyal visitors (defined as those who visited the chain at least twice in a month) was 60.1%. In contrast, other leading c-store chains operating in Wawa’s market area – QuickTrip and 7-Eleven, for example – saw loyalty rates of 56.0% and 47.9%, respectively, for the same period.
Additionally, Wawa visitors browsed the aisles longer than those at other convenience retailers. In May 2024, 39.9% of Wawa visitors stayed in-store for 10 minutes or longer, compared to 29.6% at QuickTrip and 25.7% at 7-Eleven.
Wawa's loyal customer base and longer visit durations make it a strong contender in the retail media space. By harnessing this high level of customer engagement, Wawa can draw in advertisers and develop targeted marketing strategies that resonate with its dedicated shoppers.
Wawa has been on an expansion roll over the past few years, with plans to open at least 280 stores over the next decade in North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky. The chain has also been steadily increasing its footprint in Florida – between January 2019 and April 2024, Wawa grew from 167 Sunshine State locations to 280, with more to come.
And analyzing changes in Wawa’s visit share in one of Florida’s biggest markets – the Miami-Ft. Lauderdale DMA – shows how successful the chain’s local expansion has been. Between January 2019 and April 2024, Wawa more than doubled its category-wide visit share in the Miami area (i.e. the portion of total c-store visits in the DMA going to Wawa) – from 19.0% to nearly 40.0%.
A look at changes in Wawa’s Miami-Ft. Lauderdale trade area shows that the chain’s growing visit share has been driven by an expanding market and an increasingly diverse audience.
In April 2019, there were some 55 zip code tabulation areas (ZCTAs) in the Miami-Ft. Lauderdale DMA from which Wawa drew at least 3,000 visits per month. By April 2021, this figure grew to 96 – and by April 2024, it reached 129.
Over the same period, the share of “Family Union” households in Wawa’s local captured market – defined by the Experian: Mosaic dataset as families comprised of middle-income, blue collar workers – nearly doubled, growing from 7.4% in April 2019 to 14.4% in April 2024.
Retail media networks that make it easier to introduce shoppers to products and brands that are closely aligned with their preferences and habits offer a win-win-win for retailers, advertisers, and consumers alike. And Costco and Wawa are extremely well-positioned to make the most of this opportunity.
