PRCH: Shopping centre footfall up 4.6% year-on-year in 2023

Shopping centre visitation was 4.6% higher year-on-year in 2023, according to data from the Polish Council of Shopping Centres (PRCH). The figures show that, despite the difficult economic situation, Poles were more willing to visit shopping centres than a year earlier, with facilities recording the highest traffic in December.

"A 4.6% increase in customer visits to shopping centres in 2023 is very good news for the industry. Despite the economic slowdown and high inflation last year, Poles were even more willing to use shopping centre offers than in 2022. Importantly, the results of the PRCH Footfall Density Index, Poland's largest cyclical survey of shopping centre footfall, are highly authoritative. The collection, verification and analysis of the data has been continuously supervised for 16 years by the international auditor PwC. The index includes information
from facilities with a total floor area of more than 4.5 million m2, which represents more than 33% of the shopping centre market in Poland. Thanks to the use of state-of-the-art camera systems, customer flows in the facilities are analysed with an accuracy of up to 98%," said PRCH CEO Krzysztof Poznański.

The average footfall of shopping malls, measured by the number of customers per square metre of leasable area, was 10.8 people per month in 2023. In 2022, the rate was lower at 10.3 people per 1 m2 of rental space per month. This translated into a 4.6% increase in average shopping centre footfall in 2023, it was stated.

In each of the months from January to November 2023, more customers used shopping centres than in the corresponding periods of 2022. Only December recorded a slight decrease of half a percent compared to December of the previous year. This result was directly influenced by the lower number of shopping days, of which there were 26 in December 2023, two fewer than in December 2022. Invariably, however, on an annual basis, December was the month in which Poles visited shopping centres most frequently, PRCH highlights.

The Polish Council of Shopping Centres (PRCH) is a not-for-profit association with more than 200 members operating in the retail and service venue sector.

Source: PRCH and ISBnews