High streets the big winners in early Jubilee Weekend success

By

Nigel TAYLOR

Published
Jun 7, 2022

The Queen’s Jubilee weekend celebrations were widely regarded as a major success, but how did retail footfall fare over the period?

It surged 17.7% across all UK retail destinations on the key opening day, the Bank Holiday Thursday, compared to the previous week, helped by the warm and sunny weather and events being held in many town centres, according to the latest Springboard footfall figures.
 
However, footfall on the Friday and Saturday was lower than on the same days in the previous week (-6.7% and -10.4% respectively), as shoppers turned their attention to more local jubilee celebrations, the report noted.

High streets performed “exceptionally”, with jubilee events and street parties pushing footfall up 22.6% versus +14.8% in shopping centres and +10.2% in retail parks.
 
Coastal towns also saw an exceptional performance on Thursday, due to the good weather and the fact that it was a school half-term holiday. Footfall increased by a huge 63.7% from the previous Thursday, resulting in an uplift of 21.3% from the 2019 level on that one day.
 
This followed a positive month for footfall figures, as they strengthened in May to 13.7% below 2019 from -15.9% in April.
 
Footfall for May “reflects the strong store sales results for many retail categories” recorded by Springboard’s Store Sales Tracker which showed in-store sales were 5% higher in May than in May 2019. 
 
But the results belie the underlying inflation pressures that are starting to reveal themselves, noted Springboard. Footfall in the first week of May was just 9.3% below 2019 across all retail destinations, buoyed by the early May Bank Holiday, but then worsened to -16.1% below the 2019 level in the last week.