Footfall might have slumped in rainy Britain during April, but, as reported in nu.nl, shopping streets in Dutch cities are much busier this spring than in previous years, as crowds return after a protracted dip during the corona crisis. In Amsterdam, Utrecht and Maastricht it is even busier than before the pandemic.
In recent weeks, research agency Locatus visited 33 shopping areas. The researchers counted many more shoppers there than in recent years. The crowds are now almost equal to that of the last year before the corona pandemic.
Sales are also actually increasing, according to retail figures which came out recently in The Netherlands. In the first quarter of this year, stores sold more than 3 percent more items, whilst price increases allowed stores to increase their turnover even further.
Shopping streets in major cities such as Amsterdam, Utrecht and Maastricht are back as hotspots, Locatus reports. In those cities, the number of passers-by in the shopping streets was higher than in 2019.
The busiest shopping streets in the country are also located in those cities. The Damrak in Amsterdam, Hoog Catharijne in Utrecht and the Groote Staat in Maastricht each attracted more than 50,000 people during the count.
