We're entering the peak tourist season in Seattle. The cruise ships are back, Pike Place Market is bustling and visitors are enjoying our revitalized waterfront.
But at least one group isn't showing up to Seattle's attractions as much as it used to: locals.
Each year, market-research firm Nielsen surveys Seattle-area residents about attractions and events they've attended in the past 12 months. The latest data shows most of the attractions and events have seen a drop in local visitors compared with the period just before the pandemic hit.
Take Pike Place Market, the No. 1 tourist attraction in Seattle. Surveys conducted from February 2024 to February 2025 show a projected 1.41 million Seattle-area adults had visited the Market at least once in the past 12 months, about 31% of the adult population.
While that's an impressive number, it's a drop from surveys conducted from February 2019 to February 2020. At that time, 1.76 million local adults had visited the Market, about 41% of the adult population.
While the data doesn't explain the reasons behind the drop, it's likely some of it is a hangover from the pandemic. Folks got out of the habit of enjoying an outing in Seattle during the lockdowns, and it's taking a while to recover.
It could also be people in the area who live just outside of Seattle are more reluctant to come into the city due to concern over crime, homelessness and other issues.
Then there's the cost. Everything is more expensive, and that could be keeping some folks away.
The survey data doesn't ask about frequency of visits, only whether someone had visited an attraction or event at least one time in the past 12 months. So a person who visited Pike Place Market once would be counted the same as someone who'd gone a dozen times.
Besides Pike Place Market, most Seattle attractions included in the survey have seen a decline in local attendance since before the pandemic.
Two Seattle Center museums had fewer local visitors, with a particularly sharp drop at the Pacific Science Center, down about 24%, or more than 100,000 local visitors. The Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP) declined by 8.5%.
Local visitors to the Great Wheel on the waterfront fell by about 10%. Woodland Park Zoo and the Museum of Flight had smaller declines, both at around 3%.
One attraction drew more local visitors than before the pandemic: The Seattle Aquarium, up by nearly 50,000 visitors, an 11% increase. That was likely due to the grand opening of the aquarium's new Ocean Pavilion in August.
Sporting and other events in Seattle were a mixed bag. Sounders soccer had a sharp decline, with 85,000 fewer local fans having attended a game in the past 12 months, a 26.5% drop. Mariners baseball fell by 81,000 local visitors, or 9%. But Seahawks football attracted 62,000 more local fans, up 15%. And Storm women's basketball had a huge surge, more than doubling the number of local attendees. That could be due to a growing interest nationally in women's basketball.
Local residents who had attended events at Lumen Field, including concerts and trade shows, were down by 75,000 people, or 9%. Seattle Center events, such as the Bumbershoot music festival, Folklife, and many other cultural events, were unchanged from pre-pandemic levels.
For its latest data, Nielsen surveyed more than 3,900 adults in the Seattle market area, which covers most of the Puget Sound region, and had a projected adult population of 4.5 million.
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