Readers of this newspaper will be aware that the Brussels Winter Wonders Christmas market ('Plaisirs d'Hiver' in French, 'Winterpret' in Dutch) is the best Christmas market in the world. But just how much of a resounding success was last year's market?
According to figures recently released by the city's authorities and reported by BX1, Winter Wonders 2022 — which ran between 25 November 2022 and 1 January 2023 — recorded a total of 3,444,762 visitors, including 2,268,106 Belgians (1,236,091 from Brussels, and 1,032,015 people from elsewhere in the country) and 1,176,656 internationals.
The city authorities also estimated that approximately 300,000 people had the pleasure of experiencing the market's partial extension until 8 January at Place de la Monnaie and Place De Brouckère. Moreover, 49,294 people skated on the ice rink and 4,748 enjoyed playing on the curling tracks at Place de la Monnaie.
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All in all, the City of Brussels appraised this year's attendance as "very positive," and noted that the figures were "comparable" to the last pre-pandemic Winter Wonders in 2019. It also expressed satisfaction with the "sustainable" quality of this year's market and noted that traffic in the city centre was far less disrupted compared to previous years.
The next Winter Wonders market — the 23rd in its history — is set to run from 24 November to 31 December this year.
