Covent Garden is Europe's 'most popular' shopping location - analysis

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Apr 22, 2022

European retail may have been somewhat disrupted for the past few years, but the key shopping streets retain their appeal for local and international consumers. And a new ‘Popularity Index' shows that the UK is home to three of the most popular shopping streets in Europe.

The study — from UniDays — looked at four main areas of popularity: daily foot traffic, TripAdvisor reviews, monthly Google searches, and Instagrammability. Based on this, the index revealed that the UK's Covent Garden is the most popular outdoor shopping street in Europe, with a total score of 90 out of 100. 

London’s Regent and Oxford Streets are also among the most popular streets with third-placed Oxford Street being named as having the highest footfall, as more than 72,000 visitors walk it daily.

But Covent Garden is the most Instagrammable, most Googled globally, and most reviewed on TripAdvisor.

There are almost 1.5million photos of Covent Garden on Instagram, and monthly searches of almost 150,000 across the world. But while it’s one of the oldest shopping spots in London, it sees only 65% as much foot traffic as Oxford Street. 

Sixth-placed Regent Street also has less foot traffic than Oxford Street, despite being adjacent to it, as well as fewer online reviews and searches. That said, it’s a key destination for affluent shoppers and has been one of the most popular locations for flagship store openings in the last year.

Looking beyond the UK, Ireland also scores well with three Dublins streets (Grafton, Mary and Henry) in seventh, 11th and 12th spots, respectively.

Looking at the entire list, while Covent Garden scores 90 out of 100, second-placed Paris street Avenue des Champs-Élysées scores some way behind on 72, but slightly more visitors a day (45,500 compared to Covent Garden’s 44,000).

As mentioned, Oxford Street is third, with Gran Via in Madrid fourth, and Berlin’s Alexanderplatz next. Milan’s Corso Vittorio Emanuele II is eighth, Madrid’s Calle de Preciados ninth and Rue de Rivoli in Paris rounds out the top 10.

The rest of the top 20 includes those two Dublin streets, followed by Drottninggatan in Stockholm, Boulevard Haussmann in Paris, Kärntner Strasse and Mariahilfer Strasse in Vienna. The final four are Milan’s Via Torino, Rue Neuve in Brussels, Østergade in Copenhagen, and Na Příkopě in Prague.