Since the pandemic the downtown shopping area of Ghent has continued to grow in popularity. The figures also show increasing numbers of foreign shoppers visiting the East Flemish capital.
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Shopping in the Ghent downtown increasingly popular among foreign visitors
Colin Clapson
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Today a quarter of the visitors hail from abroad and these are figures that are continuing to rise. 46,000 shoppers from the Netherlands visited central Ghent in only a month. Twenty thousand Spaniards and an equal number of French nationals also descended on the area. It’s especially the numbers of Spaniards that are growing. During the Christmas month 37,000 Spaniards visited the downtown, but Germans (14,000) and Britons (10,000) are also increasingly keen.
The figures come from telecom operator Proximus that measured how busy it gets in the Ghent downtown using mobile phone data. On average 650,000 visitors venture into the downtown every month. Proximus can’t tell if everybody bought something but can say when it gets busiest: around 4PM.
“Various techniques are used to measure visitor numbers” says Alderwoman Bracke. “We are prepared to release the information to traders to allow them to decide the best location and when they will need most staff”.
The Ghent Festival means July was the busiest month with nearly 868,000 visitors in the downtown. December (832,000) is the second busiest month.
Most visitors hail from Belgium. A quarter are Ghentians. Many are West Flemings, but Antwerpians and Brabantians too find their way to the East Flemish capital.