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Over the May summer bank holiday weekend, footfall increased by 5.4% across all UK retail destinations, according to the latest report by Springboard.
High streets benefited from the long weekend, with footfall up 8.5% compared with 2022 whilst retail parks experienced 5.2% uplift on bank holiday Monday.
Footfall soared over the bank holiday weekend at coastal towns, buoyed by the arrival holiday makers week-on-week footfall climbed by 24.7% across the weekend.
Springboard said that sunny weather on Sunday encouraged shoppers, with year on year UK footfall rising 9.2% on that day.
Additionally, the lead up to school half-term and bank holidays provided a boost for retailers as footfall increased by 5.1% across all UK destinations compared to the same week in 2022.
Seven-day period from Sunday to Saturday saw week on week rises across all three key destination types, up 4% in retail parks, 3.2% in shopping centres and 2.9% in high streets
However, Central London was the only town type to see footfall decline from the previous week, with a drop of 2.3%.
Diane Wehrle, insights director at MRI Springboard, said: “The performance of towns that are particularly appealing for day visits and holidays substantially improved on Sunday, boosted by holidaymakers who had spent Saturday travelling to their destinations. In coastal towns footfall on Sunday was 30.2% higher than on the previous Sunday, it was 22.3% higher in city centres around the UK, 17.6% higher in Central London and 11.6% higher in historic towns.
“On Bank Holiday Monday footfall was 5.2% higher than the week before, but by far the greatest uplift of 11.6% occurred in retail parks versus just 3.2% in high streets, as shoppers visited food stores to replenish food and groceries after the weekend. Footfall in shopping centres was also 3.2% higher on Monday than the week before.”
She added: “Over the three days of the late May bank holiday as a whole, the average uplift in footfall from the week before was 5.4% versus 11.6% over the Early May bank holiday. This difference is in part likely to be due to the large number of holidaymakers making the most of the late May half term break to take overseas trips.
“The week on week rise in footfall last week meant that the uplift from 2022 increased by a quarter to +5.1% over the seven days from Sunday to Saturday, however whilst over the bank holiday days the year on year increase averaged 4.5%. Over the seven days last week the gap from the 2019 footfall level widened to 12.1% from 11.6% in the week before last, but over the three bank holiday days the gap was more modest at 4.2%.”
