Northern Ireland, the North East and Scotland Show the Largest Increase in Town Centre Visitors as Footfall Report Shows Positive Trend Across UK For First time in 2024

Place Informatics, the leading provider of footfall and location visitor behaviour data monitoring in the UK, has published a national visitor data report giving a detailed overview of town centre footfall across the UK in 2024.

The report gives detailed monthly insights into town centres and the latest report for July has shown that visitor numbers have increased for the first time across the UK this year compared to 2023 figures. The report revealed a 0.72% increase in visitors, marking a positive shift following a steady decline in footfall numbers during the first six months of 2024.

The report examines town centre visitor trends nationally and across 12 UK regions throughout 2024, focusing on monthly fluctuations and comparing this data to the previous year. The town centre report revealed that every region in the UK experienced an increase in visitors in July, indicating a positive trend across the nation. Northern Ireland saw the largest increase at 1.64%, followed by the North East at 1.50% and Scotland at 1.04%. The South East, however, recorded the smallest increase at 0.2%.

Since 2015, Place Informatics has been at the forefront of foot traffic data innovation, providing crucial insights into how people interact with town centres, retail outlets, tourist attractions, heritage sites, green spaces, events, and car parks. Leveraging advanced technologies such as machine learning, these big data solutions are helping to transform the industry.

Clive Hall, CEO of Place Informatics, commented, “Our visitor behaviour data report indicates a positive trend in visitor numbers, as July 2024 was the first month to show an increase in footfall to town centres compared to 2023 figures. To maintain this upward momentum, it is essential for local councils and businesses to identify the key factors that drive visitor growth and work collaboratively to foster continued expansion throughout the year.

Our data can help retailers, hospitality, councils and many other businesses and services understand how visitors are behaving, where visitors come from and most importantly what services they are utilising on their visit, including green spaces, car parks and public realms.”