Issue Brief: 2025 Holiday Shopping Season in Southwest Florida

April 29, 2026 / RERI Research Team

The holiday shopping season is a critical period for retailers and local economies, often serving as a barometer for overall economic health and consumer confidence. Regions like Southwest Florida can be more prone to the effect of this season, as the area caters to snowbirds and other seasonal residents from across the world. Understanding the trends and patterns of previous years becomes valuable for businesses, policymakers, and consumers alike.

In this issue brief, we provide a follow-up to our 2025 issue brief that looked into the 2024 holiday shopping season for Southwest Florida. The data for this issue brief comes from Placer.ai, a location intelligence and analytics platform that provides insights into consumer behavior and market trends. Placer.ai uses mobile device data to better understand consumer patterns, providing valuable insights for key stakeholders in the region. We define the “pre-holiday season” as the months between January and October, while the “holiday season” is defined as November and December. This definition of holiday season captures both traffic that occur as a result from Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Christmas and New Year shopping. We use the International Council of Shopping Center’s (ICSC) Classification and Characteristics to define the various types of shopping centers.

We find that Southwest Florida ranked 11th out of 21 workforce regions in terms of the overall percentage increase in holiday visitors during the 2025 holiday season, with a 9.8 percent increase compared to the pre-holiday season. In contrast, Southwest Florida ranked 6th in 2024 and experienced a 10.1 percent increase during that same timeframe. When looking at visitation by category, we observe that Community Shopping Centers, which offer general merchandise and other convenience-oriented services, tend to see the largest bump in foot traffic during the holiday season, accounting for approximately 18.9 percent of the total increase in holiday shopping in Southwest Florida. Finally, when looking at the data for visits per day per establishment level, we find that larger centers with numerous offerings and brand names tend to see the largest increases during the holiday season.

While the region continues to see increased foot traffic during the holiday season, its ranking slipped from 6th to 11th among Florida's workforce regions, and the overall percentage increase dipped slightly from 2024. This suggests that while demand remains healthy, the region may be experiencing a gradual normalization of post-pandemic shopping patterns as consumers face broader headwinds in consumer confidence. At the same time, the per-establishment data reveals an important distinction: larger, experience-oriented destinations like Malls and Specialized-Purpose Centers see disproportionately strong surges during the holiday season, highlighting their importance in driving regional economic activity.

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Issue Brief: 2025 Holiday Shopping Season in Southwest Florida

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