West End footfall up 5% with Saturday spike

New West End Company has revealed its latest footfall figures, showing a 5% increase on the previous week and a 13% increase recorded on Saturday on pre-pandemic 2019 levels.

The company believes the increase to be due to the start of the Christmas shopping season and West End's largest ever Christmas light switch on Friday, driving visitors to the district to take advantage of the festive offerings of the West End.

However, the West End's weekly footfall statistics compared to 2019 were down 25%, with 2021's overall footfall down by 58% on the same period in 2019.

Further figures released by New West End Company show that sales in October rose to 73% of 2019 levels, with almost two thirds of this spend from UK domestic spenders in London’s West End.