Report: Boston Harbor Visitor Numbers Drop by Half of 2019 Levels

The Boston Harbor waterfront saw a significant drop in visitation due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

A Boston Globe report noted that visits to the Harborwalk along the city's coastline and adjacent parks saw a sharp drop in visitors in 2021 and 2022, falling to just over half of 2019 levels, according to cell phone data analyzed by Boston Harbor Now.

Similarly, total visits to the HarborWalk and parks declined from 13.3 million in 2019 to 7 million in 2022, while unique visitors dropped from 2.9 million in 2019 to 954,000 in 2022.

The nonprofit Boston Harbor Now released data gathered through a partnership with the MassINC Polling Group, which surveyed visitors at five major waterfront parks in 2023 to understand visitor demographics and usage.

According to The Boston Globe, nearly half of waterfront visitors were from Boston, mostly from neighborhoods near the water. The racial composition of waterfront visitors roughly matched that of the Boston metro area, with about 65% of visitors to waterfront parks and the Harborwalk being white.

As reported by the Globe, Boston Harbor Now also used the cell phone data to investigate visitation information to the Boston Harbor Islands, primarily Spectacle and Georges Islands. By 2022, the number of visits had surpassed 2019 levels; however, the number of unique visitors remained much lower, and a significant portion (approximately three-quarters) of visitors to the islands were white.

Thanks to funding from the Barr Foundation, Boston Harbor Now hired its first Harborwalk manager, Jason Rundle, with the hope that he'll use findings from the research to bring more people to the harbor and the islands, as well as engage with the nearly 400 waterfront property owners to shape the Harborwalk's future.