UK footfall jumps 15% in lead up to Easter
UK footfall across all retail destinations rose 15% between Monday 11 – Thursday 14 April, compared to the same days on the week before, as consumers shopped ahead of the Easter weekend.
There was an even greater spike on Thursday of 21.9%, and a jump of 27.3% in UK high streets, according to the latest data from retail experts Springboard.
Footfall also rose 5.8% on Good Friday compared to the Friday before, and there was a particularly huge increase in activity in coastal towns of +33.6%, boosted by the warm and sunny weather.
High streets performed well on Good Friday too, with a 10% increase versus the previous Friday, and historic towns also proved attractive to consumers, with a rise in footfall of +15.8%.
Central London footfall on Good Friday rose by 14.3% and there was a rise of 14.5% in other large city centres around the UK.
However, the overall uplift in footfall tailed off on Saturday with a rise of just 0.2% compared to the previous Saturday, although high streets still attracted +2.9% more visitors than on the Saturday before.
By Easter Monday footfall was -8.6% lower than on the Monday before, with significant drops in activity in high streets and shopping centres of -13.5% and -15.2% respectively. But footfall in retail parks benefited from a +8.8% rise on Easter Monday.
UK footfall over Easter as a whole remained -13% below pre-pandemic 2019, but it was +119.2% above Easter 2021. However, Easter last year was heavily impacted as it fell between 2-5 April when the UK was still under Lockdown 3 restrictions.
Diane Wehrle, Insights Director at Springboard, said: “Two factors heavily influenced footfall activity in UK retail destinations over Easter this year; the first factor was the warm and sunny weather, and the second factor was that this the first Easter bank holiday weekend since 2019 with no Covid restrictions.
“That was a likely a factor in people making trips to retail destinations in advance of Easter, rather than on the weekend itself.”
