Satisfy Your Food Cravings During the 2022 Holiday Season!

Overview & Methodology

In this report, we take a closer look at consumers’ behavior and foot traffic patterns around dining out and grocery shopping during the recent holiday season. We compared behavior in 2021 with 2020 data to help advertisers identify and capitalize on what to expect and look forward to in the 2022 holiday season.

Foursquare analyzes consumer behavior based on foot traffic data from millions of Americans that make up our always-on panel. For the purpose of this report, all data is anonymized, aggregated and normalized against U.S. Census data to remove any age, gender and geographical bias.

Definitions

Analysis Period: Holidays 2021 = November 1 - December 31 2021; Holidays 2020 = November 1 - December 31 2020

Indexed Affinities indicate the times (or percentage) more or less likely than the average U.S. consumer to visit a given category or chain, where 1 represents the average U.S. consumer’s visit propensity.
Penetration is calculated as the percentage of Americans who visited a given category or chain at least one time during that analysis time frame (Nov-Dec 2020, Nov-Dec 2021).

Key Learnings & Insights

Key learnings & dining trends for the 2022 holiday season

• Friday overtakes Saturday as the busiest day of the week for restaurants during the holidays.
• Restaurants will see more dinner traffic and fewer breakfast visitors during the 2022 holidays.
• More people were going out for dinner during the holidays, resulting in a YoY increase in traffic after 6PM.
• Restaurants are the busiest in the week leading up to Christmas, with December 23rd being the busiest day (+24% lift in traffic compared to the average day in 2021).
• Restaurants will have more holiday traffic from Gen Z patrons in 2022.
• American, Mexican and Asian cuisines draw the most holiday traffic.

Key learnings & trends around casual dining during the holidays

• 58% of Americans visited a casual dining chain during the holidays last year.
• Casual dining chains will see increased traffic on Fridays with a notable boost in Thursday traffic.
• Average visit frequency among casual diners: 3.4X during the 2021 Holidays.
• Casual dining chains draw more women and older patrons (65+) during the holidays, with 52% of casual dining traffic being female in 2021.

Key learnings & trends for QSRs during holidays

• 86% of Americans visited a QSR during the holidays last year.
• Average QSR visit frequency: 10X in 2021 Holidays.
• QSRs draw more Gen Z & female customers during the holidays.

Key learnings & trends for grocery retailers during holidays

• 92% of Americans visited a grocery store at least once during the holidays last year.
• Grocery stores are busiest in the week leading up to Christmas, with December 24 experiencing a +19% lift in traffic.
• Average number of shopping trips amongst grocery store visitors during the 2021 holidays: 10 (up from 8 trips in 2020).

Restaurants will see the most traffic in the days leading up to Christmas

Restaurants saw the biggest lift in traffic on December 23 2021, up +24% compared to visits on the average day last year.

Lift in Traffic To Restaurants Compared to the Average Day in 2021

• December 23: +24%
• December 24: +20%
• December 25: +30%
• November 24: +21% (Thanksgiving Eve)

Capitalize on the top days for dining out during the holiday season

1. Two days before Christmas +24%
2. Three days before Christmas +21%
3. Day before Thanksgiving +21%
4. Three days before Christmas Eve +20%
5. 2nd Thursday of November +18%
6. 2nd Friday of November +17%
7. Sunday before Christmas +17%
8. Tuesday before Thanksgiving +12%

Restaurants will see holidays traffic patterns

• More people are going out to dinner during the holidays with 27% of total holiday traffic occurring after 6PM last year (vs. only 23% in 2020).
• While restaurants will continue to see most traffic from people ages 35-54, the biggest shift is among Gen Z diners.

American, Mexican & Asian cuisines remain popular

Penetration (% of Americans who visited at least 1x between Nov 1 - Dec 31)

• American, Mexican, and Asian cuisine remains most popular among dining patrons during the holidays.
• Fast casual dining chains such as McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Subway among top visited.

More Americans are frequenting casual dining chains during the holidays

• Recent data indicates that 58% of Americans dined out at a casual dining chain during the holiday season, up from 31% in 2020.

Grocery stores experience less traffic on weekends during the holidays

• Grocery retailers will have fewer visitors on weekends, significantly more traffic on Fridays accounting for 16% of total weekly traffic in 2021.

Opportunities based on recent data include

• Segment visitors to identify behaviors that can drive promotions around key dining dates.
• Engage consumers in multiple segments based on dining and shopping patterns pre-and post-holidays.
• Understand customer preferences and optimize service offerings accordingly.