Significant Footfall Rise In Week Leading Up To Christmas Day

Springboard has published footfall data for week 51 (18/12 - 24/12) noting that footfall rose significantly in the week before Christmas. 

Springboard Index - Week 51 2022

2022 vs 2021 = +24.9%

2022 vs 2019 = -7.1%

Week-on-week = +14.2%

Springboard's Marketing and Insights Director, Diane Wehrle, said:

In the week leading up to Christmas Day, and following the disruption caused by the rail strikes, footfall rose significantly last week from the week before across UK retail destinations. 

There were rises in activity across all three key destination types, but the increases in footfall in shopping centres and retail parks were nearly double that in high streets, a trend that is familiar at Christmas as many shoppers head to large retail destinations that have a concentration of major stores. 

The rise in footfall in Central London last week from the week before was virtually on par with the increase in UK high streets, but it was a third less in city centres across the UK.  Conversely the rise in footfall in market towns was nearly double that in Central London, and nearly three times that in city centres across the UK, indicating that many shoppers opted to shop locally.

Footfall peaked on Friday 23rd December as it does every year, as many people use 24th December to travel to their Christmas destinations, heightened this year by the start of the rail strike at lunchtime. 

Footfall was noticeably higher last week than in the same week in 2021.  This is not a surprising result as last year the UK was still in the midst of the pandemic, with the Omicron variant a concern to many, restricting the extent to which consumers made trips out for shopping.

Footfall last week was higher than the 2019 level, but in large part this is due to the shift in the calendar which meant that Christmas Day 2019 fell in the middle of the week rather than at the end of the week as it did this year.

Source : Springboard

Image : Smileus / iStockphoto.com (624124526)

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