The City of Victoria has released data on the city’s economic recovery that they say Victorians can be cautiously optimistic about.
As guided by their Victoria 3.0 Economic Action Plan, the city has created an economic dashboard that Mayor Lisa Helps says will tell the story of the downtown economy, in numbers, 16 months after a global health pandemic.
The data was released Friday, June 18th, and it compares key economic indicators in February, March and April 2019 with the same months in 2020 and 2021.
The City of Victoria said that while the early days of the pandemic saw a decrease, the number of people downtown, pedestrian counters, parking data, and bike counters show an increase in people downtown in April 2021 as compared to April 2020.
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According to the data, compared to 2020, there has been a 23% increase in bicyclists and a 29% increase in downtown parking.
Construction value increased $47.64 million in 2020 to $130 million in 2021.
Film permits went from a total number of 15 in 2020, to 58 in 2021.
And in 2021, 620 new business licences were issued, compared to the 600 issued pre-pandemic in 2020.
In the statement, the city said it was optimistic about building and diversifying Victoria’s strengths in tourism, tech, and film.
“The increase in the number of film permits and the value of construction are good indicators of how attractive Greater Victoria is to people wanting to do business here,” said Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce CEO Bruce Williams.
“We see in the data that people are generally returning to typical activity. We also know there is tremendous pent-up demand to visit our region and for locals to get back to dining inside, going to the movies and theatre, and attending concerts and sporting events. We’re ready to go, as soon as it’s safe to do so.”
The city said it will release data on these indicators quarterly over the next few years to track Victoria’s economic recovery.
For more information on the economic recovery dashboard, visit victoria.ca/EconomicDevelopment.
