Article content
London’s Covent Garden Market is out to reinvent itself, launching a new survey the downtown venue hopes will guide its future and help it stay ahead of the core’s residential boom.
The new survey by the market, available to all Londoners, comes at a time of transformation for the core and market vendors, which until the start of the COVID-19 pandemic relied heavily on office workers for much of their business.
Article content
Now, London’s downtown has the highest office vacancy rate in the country at a time when several high-rise towers are under construction, with more coming.
It’s a combination that is prompting the market to rethink its offerings in an attempt to better serve its changing customer base and position itself for the future.
“The downtown is going through a transition period, and the market is too,” said Amy Shackleton, general manager of the market. “It’s been a big shift from COVID to now. Now, we’re seeing that switch to a lot more residential around us, so we want to be able to cater to the needs of those customers all around us.”
Among the items under consideration by the market – the closest thing to a grocery store in the city’s core – are hours of operations and the mix of vendors it has.
But they also want to hear from Londoners about key services or features the market may be missing or things they like or would like to see changed, Shackleton said.
“Our goal is to better understand our customers,” she said. “Who’s visiting? How often do they visit? And we also want to know who’s not visiting and what the barriers are.”
Share this article in your social network
