Footfall boosted by half term last week
New figures have revealed that footfall in UK retail destinations climbed by 11.1% last week on the previous seven days.
The data from footfall specialist Springboard shows that high streets and shopping centres saw the biggest increases in the week with respective uplifts of 12.1% and 15.2%. Meanwhile, retail park footfall rose by 4.7%.
Due to the week falling in half term, Springboard found that towns that are more attractive to visitors saw bigger increases in footfall compared to local high streets. The number of visits to coastal and historic towns rose by 18.9% and 12.6% respectively, whilst Central London footfall rose by 19.4%. Regional cities outside of the capital also benefited from half term visits with an uplift of 16.1%.
Diane Wehrle, insights director at Springboard, said: “The October school half term holiday last week delivered a noticeable boost to footfall across UK retail destinations, with an increase in activity from the week before across all three key destination types – the largest since the week before the late May bank holiday – and double digit rises in both high streets and shopping centres.
“All types of high street benefited, but consumers clearly took the opportunity to travel further afield as the increases in footfall in coastal towns, historic town, Central London and regional cities outside of the capital were at least twice that in market towns.”
Last week’s boost meant that the gap in footfall from 2019 narrowed to -10.9% across all retail destinations from -15.3% in the previous week. It also meant that footfall was 34.8% higher than in the same week in 2020.
