Springboard finds resilient post-Christmas footfall
The second week of the year, and the first working week without a Bank Holiday, delivered unexpected good news; with only a marginal drop in footfall of -0.9 per cent from the same week last year when footfall dropped by a far greater -4.2 per cent. Indeed, in part it is likely that the more stable footfall is a result of the weak comparable last year.
Notwithstanding this, footfall in all three destination types improved on last year, with the largest uplift in retail parks where footfall rose by +1.5 per cent compared with a drop of -3.8 per cent in 2017. However, footfall in shopping centres –- while still in negative territory this year of -0.8 per cent – improved significantly from the drop of -5.8 per cent last year. High streets underperformed shopping centres with a drop in footfall of -1.9 per cent, but again this was an improvement on the decline of -3.6 per cent in 2017.
The movement in footfall last week of -2.3 per cent from the week before was largely similar to last year, when the week on week change in footfall was -2.1 per cent, and in all three destination types the magnitude of this movement was broadly similar at around -2.5 per cent.
However, there were differences in the weekly trend between destination types compared with last year. While the week-on-week drop in footfall in high streets was -2.0 per cent this year, this was significantly worse than last year when footfall moved only marginally from the week before (by -0.1 per cent). In contrast, in the other two destination types the shift from the previous week was more favourable than last year.
