The Waterfront BIA’s 2024 Area Data Package aims to support the growth and economic development of the waterfront business community by providing regularly updated information on waterfront visitors, demographic insights, pedestrian counts, commercial vessel usage, and more.
Following our 2024 Waterfront Retail Review, this data package serves as a vital resource for businesses, offering detailed analyses and insights that are updated periodically throughout the year. Some sections, such as footfall and pedestrian counts, will be refreshed as often as monthly to ensure the most current data is available.
Key highlights include:
Labour Day long weekend pedestrian counts strong despite some weather warnings
- Pg. 04 east-west pedestrian counts in August were down (-12%) compared to last August after a few months tracking similar numbers as 2023 through Spring. Unfortunately, when compared to pre-pandemic 2019, this indicator of activity in the central/western waterfront is still down significantly (-35% in August compared to August 2019).
- Labour Day long weekend pedestrian counts (Pg. 05) were comparable to the same long weekend last year and in 2019, which was a positive sign considering there was rain (or rain warnings) for two days this past weekend. Overall, the Summer has seen a high number of rainy days (Pg. 08). This year and last year have had significantly more 15mm rain days than the four years previous.
Total visits based on cell phone tracking show more promising trends through July
- While our pedestrian counts mentioned above are focused on east-west activity through the central waterfront, the ‘Total Visit’ counts we have based on cell phone tracking (Pg. 09) showed a higher Spring/Summer than any time since 2019. While the pedestrian counters are specifically volume of activity through the central waterfront, we understand the stronger ‘Total Visits’ to be due to more activity throughout all of Queens Quay with significant development over the last decade in the East.
- This tracker does not include international visits, and we know that more visits have been originating downtown and nearby since the pandemic (Pg. 17). We also have seen in Destination Toronto’s data about out-of-country visits, 2024 is tracking closer to the 1.4 million out-of-country visitors in 2023 than the 1.8 million in pre-pandemic 2019.
Discretionary spending in Toronto has not been strong
- In talking to local businesses, there was a mixed reaction regarding Summer spending patterns with some having their best years ever, but many indicating that spending was not strong compared to previous years. This is backed up by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce’s Spending Tracker – they show that spending is down more in Toronto than in other parts of the country.
A bit of optimism – this Fall will probably have more events than any time in the waterfront’s history
We are seeing more events and activities planned this September and October than ever before – we’ll keep our fingers crossed that we see strong visitation trends deeper into the Fall this year. The Waterfront Festival will be focused on HTO Park on September 14-15, Festival of Authors Sept 19-29, Bentway’s 2.5km long Dominoes will end at the Malting Silos on September 21, and Nuit Blanche will have a heavy focus along Queens Quay on the evening of October 5. For more details, check out the Waterfront BIA’s Upcoming Events.
Contact Information:
Dorsa: (647) 271-0246, dorsa@waterfrontbia.com
Oliver: (416) 845-0084, oliver@waterfrontbia.com
Older Versions
August 2024
