In this article, we will reveal the most festive city in the US. If you wish to look at our detailed rankings, you can go to the 25 Most Festive Cities in the US.
The holiday season in the United States is a time for family, friends, and of course, festive cheer. However, the festive experience isn’t the same across the country. While some of the most festive cities such as New York City, New York, or Chicago, Illinois offer a classic winter wonderland view and bustling Christmas markets, others such as Honolulu, Hawaii offer a sunny getaway.
The festive spirit also leads to a significant economic boost, with the National Retail Federation (NRF) reporting that holiday spending in the US reached a record-breaking $964.4 billion in 2023. This massive spending occurred despite economic pressures created by inflation and rising interest rates. The 2023 holiday season spending reflected a 3.8% increase from 2022 and met NRF’s forecasted figures.
Meanwhile, according to preliminary data from MasterCard, online spending during the holiday season rose by 6.3%, compared to 2022. This outpaced in-store spending, which only saw a 2.2% rise, highlighting the faster growth rate of online holiday shopping.
Beyond the winter holidays, other festivals also witness significant spending increases. Valentine’s Day, for instance, saw Americans spending an estimated $25.9 billion in 2024, with candy, jewelry, and flowers being popular purchases. Thanksgiving and Black Friday shopping are also major seasonal events. Consumers reportedly spent about $38 billion on items such as furniture, electronics, and toys during the Thanksgiving weekend in 2023.
Major retailers like Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Walmart particularly benefit from these festive seasons. For instance, last year’s holiday shopping season significantly boosted Amazon.com, Inc.’s (NASDAQ:AMZN) revenue growth for the quarter ending in December 2023. The company recorded a quarterly revenue of $170 billion, exceeding analysts’ expectations and reflecting a 14% increase year-over-year (YoY).
Maintaining the growth trajectory, Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) posted strong financial results in Q1 2024 as well. The company recorded $143 billion in revenue, reflecting a 13% increase over the last year, excluding the impact of foreign exchange rates. Operating income reached over $15 billion, a 221% rise YoY. Furthermore, the company achieved $48.8 billion in trailing 12-month free cash flow, marking a $53.2 billion YoY improvement.
Here’s what Baron Funds said about Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) in its Q1 2024 investor letter:
“Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) is the world’s largest retailer and cloud services provider. Shares increased 18.7% on quarterly results that exceeded consensus expectations, with revenue growth of 13% year-over-year and operating margins of 7.8% (up from 1.8% a year ago). We believe that Amazon is well positioned in the short to medium term to continue improving its core North American margins, which have reached 6.1% in the fourth quarter, the seventh straight quarter of margin improvement and an overall improvement of 800bps. Amazon has been rearchitecting its fulfillment network, improving efficiency, reducing cost-to-serve and accelerating delivery speeds thanks to initiatives such as regionalization, with the number of items delivered during the same day or overnight increasing by nearly 70% year-over-year. Reducing the cost to serve also enables Amazon to sell lower priced items and expand its addressable market to everyday purchases. Additionally, Amazon continues to benefit from its fast-growing, margin-accretive advertising business winning market share in digital advertising thanks to its structural advantages of a closed loop system, which enables a deterministic calculation of Return on Ad Spending. We also believe that e-commerce still has long duration growth ahead as it still accounts for less than 15% of retail. Similarly, Amazon’s cloud service, AWS, remains relatively early in its S-curve with cloud representing around 13% of worldwide IT spending13 incremental tailwinds across the three layers of the GenAI stack – infrastructure with NVIDIA’s own AI chips (Trainium and Inferentia) as well as with its offering of NVIDIA chips, platform (Bedrock), and applications (first and third party).”
Our Methodology
To shortlist the 25 most festive cities in the US, we used a consensus methodology. We referred to various sources such as Business Insider, Thumbtack, Realtor, Kiplinger, and Reddit threads to gain information regarding the festive spirit across different cities in the US. We collected information on various festive attractions these cities offer throughout the year, such as decoration shops, holiday markets, shopping options, and music venues.
Following the shortlisting of the cities, we assigned a score to each city based on the number of times it appeared across our sources. In the case of cities having the same score, tiebreaking was done on the basis of which city was outranking the other in our sources. The most festive cities in the US have been ranked in ascending order of their scores.
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The Most Festive City in the US
Las Vegas, NV
Insider Monkey Score: 4
Las Vegas is the largest city in Nevada and the county seat of Clark County. The city is known for its extravagant holiday displays and experiences created by casinos, restaurants, bars, and other attractions.
In 2023, tourism in Las Vegas rose, achieving new post-pandemic records in March. Vegas welcomed 40.8 million visitors, surpassing the 40 million mark for the first time since 2019. Clark County saw gaming revenue reach $13.5 billion in 2023, marking a second consecutive year of setting market records.
Furthermore, the Las Vegas Strip saw hotel occupancy rates climb to 90.5% in 2023. The development of more entertainment venues has played a key role in driving the success of the Las Vegas economy and making it the most festive city in the US.
To check out more cities, visit the 25 Most Festive Cities in the US.
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