As intense heat blankets the country, Americans are returning to a familiar place: the mall.
A new report from Placer.ai revealed that year-over-year visits to the mall were up during each week in June.
Placer.ai said the spike was particularly high during the week of June 17th, when 100 million people across the US were under heat warnings and looking for a cool escape outside the house. Indoor malls saw a 9.4% spike in traffic compared to the same week in 2023.
The report, which analyzes data from 100 indoor malls, 100 open-air shopping centers and 100 outlet malls across the country, found that people were not only going to the mall more often, but also spending more time there on average during their visits in June.
Mall traffic usually spikes in the summer as shoppers look to get out of the heat. Placer.ai data going back to 2019 shows that malls tend to draw larger crowds in the summer compared to spring and early fall, though still nowhere close what they draw around the winter holidays.
Long thought to be dying, some U.S. malls have seen a resurgence post-Covid. In 2022, more stores opened in malls than closed — the first time that happened since 2016, according to the 2023 State of the American Mall report.
That year, mall occupancy hovered around 95%, an increase from 92% in 2020.