Atlantic Canadians want to hang out but not too much yet.
Narrative Research CEO Margaret Brigley says their polling on post-COVID activities show we are anxious to get out but many are also cautious.
“We’re a social bunch…and we want to interact with others and, I’ll say that we’ve all been perhaps deprived a little bit, so, first and foremost is ‘I want to get together with my friends’ and that’s really not surprising, and the other is we worry about how we look…people want the opportunity to get that haircut.”
She says being with friends and family tied with getting a haircut tied at the top of the list at 42%.
Going shopping received 38% and going to a restaurant was 28%, lower than they expected, but still higher than many other activities and that older residents are more likely to pick going for a haircut and eating in a restaurant, while younger people were more likely to want to go to a pub or bar.
“Only 13% had said that they would go to a pub or a bar in the coming weeks and months and 12% ‘visit a spa’. So, what that shows is people, as anxious as they are to get out and become social again, they’re doing it cautiously.”
Brigley says Narrative Research’s even the numbers for shopping and going to restaurants were lower than they expected.
“Folks are being a little more hesitant in doing, I’ll say intimate or more close quarter, whether it be going to a gym, visiting that spa, being at a casino, so they’re less likely to undertake those activities.”
She says the numbers on this coast differ from the West Coast, where residents are more likely to say they want to go to the gym.
Most of the 1,230 Canadians 18 years of age or older, who participated in the survey said that the likliehood of them socializing more would depend on their province having a “sustained period of no new cases of COVID-19”.
