Despite the headwinds of booming online services, Brisbane’s inner-city retail sector is growing with a record number of businesses registered in the area.
The Committee of Brisbane’s annual Inner City Vitality Report, released today, stated that for the first time, there were now over 2000 registered retail businesses across the inner city, while new retail supply remained strong.
“While the retail sector remains challenged through wider forms of online retail consumer behaviour, it is notable that retail and accommodation and food services business continue to grow across the inner city,” it stated.
“Retail icons Wendy’s, Country Road, RM Williams, Akubra, Asics and Skechers have chosen the inner city as their home base (and) the Queen Street Mall, while suffering a number of recent major closings, recorded almost a record 8 million pedestrian movements through July 2025.”
Committee of Brisbane CEO Jen Williams said, overall, the report revealed that while the commercial, residential and health sectors remained strong, the city’s passion for hospitality, events, shows and exhibitions was driving huge demand across non-traditional sectors.
“The inner-city is typically associated with office workers and retail stores, however the number of people visiting the South Brisbane cultural precinct and attending major events is phenomenal,” Ms Williams said.
“As an example, over 425,000 people visited the Ekka in August, backed up by over 500,000 at Riverfire in September.
“The Queensland Museum welcomed almost 2.3 million visitors last financial year- a staggering figure, given this is just shy of the entire population of Greater Brisbane.”
Ms Williams said hotels and dining establishments were seeing similar demand, with CBD hotels now commanding room rates of $274 a night- up 40 percent in a single year.
She said international students were cementing their place as another important driver of inner-city activity, comprising more than 20 percent of the city’s residential population, with each student contributing in the order of $55,000 per year to the broader economy.
“This is in addition to the education sector’s $1.3 billion inner-city economy.”
Download: Brisbane Inner City Vitality Report 2025
