Published
Nov 23, 2021
Download
Download the article
Print
Text size

Central London, regional cities see fastest footfall rise as season's festivities begin

Published
Nov 23, 2021

It’s official: the Christmas trading period has begun in Britain. Week-on-week footfall to UK retail destinations rose faster than it had done in previous weeks across the latest seven days (14-21 November), rising 4.1%.


London's Covent Garden features its biggest ever Christmas tree - Photo: Nigel Taylor


Central London and regional cities outside the capital enjoyed the greatest number of visits, according to Springboard’s latest figures.

By destination, footfall rose 6.2% in high streets and 3.3% in shopping centres, with a more modest rise of 0.4% in retail parks, although this rise was a big improvement on the 1% drop in the week before.

As festive spending kicked into gear, footfall rose every day apart from Sunday and peaked on Wednesday and Friday.

As mentioned, the greatest rises were seen in Central London (8.3%) and regional cities outside of the capital (11.4%) “as shoppers gravitated to larger destinations where Christmas festivities have commenced”, noted Springboard.

In Outer London and Market towns the rise in footfall was far more modest at 2.2% and 3.6%.

Last week's footfall uplift meant that the gap from 2019 continued to narrow to -12.4% compared with -14.8% in the week before. In high streets, the gap from 2019 was even smaller (-11.9%) while in shopping centres it remained at -21.1%. Footfall currently remains more than double the level last year at +107.6% and +137.9% greater in high streets, the report noted.

Copyright © 2024 FashionNetwork.com All rights reserved.