Retail Footfall Rises As Indoor Hospitality Opens Up

Springboard data for week 20 showed a considerable rise in evening footfall as indoor hospitality returned on the 17th May. 

Overall retail footfall increased by 1.1% on the previous week, with high streets seeing the largest rise of 2.4%.  

The data revealed a 4% rise in footfall across UK high streets after 5pm, compared with a rise of 0.8% during the day. Central London experienced the highest growth, up 16.3%, and regional cities saw an 8.5% increase. 

Retail Parks - Week 20 2021

2021 vs 2020: +91.3%   

2021 vs 2019: -6.8%

Week-on-week: -1.7%

To ensure our insights are as relevant as possible we have introduced a year-on-year 2021 vs 2019 comparison for footfall.

Diane Wehrle, Marketing & Insights Director at Springboard, said: 

"The reopening of indoor dining on Monday of last week certainly supported footfall in UK retail destinations in face of prolonged and often severe rain across virtually all of the UK for much of the week.

"However, it was largely high streets that benefitted, where footfall rose by more than twice as much as in shopping centres and where the rise contrasted with a drop in activity in retail parks.

"Footfall rose across all types of town centre, however, there was also a clear gravitation towards larger cities away from local high streets. The greatest benefit for both high streets and shopping centres was most definitely during the evening, when the rise in footfall in each was more than four times as great as during retail trading hours.

"Despite the uplift in footfall last week from the week before, there is still significant ground to be made up as footfall across all UK retail destinations remains more than a quarter below the 2019 level. Retail parks, which didn't see any uplift in footfall last week, remains the most resilient of the three destination types."

Source : Insight DIY Team and Springboard data

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