MRI Springboard reports that over the seven days last week, from Sunday to Easter Saturday, footfall was +14.2% higher than the week before which was the largest week-on- week increase since the week leading up to Christmas 2022. In high streets it was even greater at +17%, with a rise of +13.8% in shopping centres and +8.8% in retail parks.
Good Friday exceeded all expectations with an increase in footfall from the week before of +17.5%. The rise in footfall in high streets on that day was even greater at +26.8% although footfall also rose on Good Friday from the week in shopping centres (+8.1%) and retail parks (+7.4%).
Easter Saturday was largely flat on the previous week with a rise across all UK retail destinations of just +0.2%, mainly due to drops in footfall in retail parks and shopping centres of -2.3% and -5.6%. In high streets activity continued to increase by +4.2% from the week before.
This meant that over the three trading days of Easter (Good Friday, Easter Saturday and Easter Monday ) footfall was +2.1% higher than the week before, with all of the increase derived from high streets and retail parks. Over the three trading days footfall in high streets was +4.8% higher than the previous week and +3.9% higher in retail parks, while in shopping centres it was -4% lower.
Footfall last week (Sunday to Saturday) was +15.6% higher than in the same week in 2022, however, this is not a comparison with the week of Easter in 2022 as it fell a week later last year. Comparing last week with the Easter week in 2022 the uplift was more modest (+6.2%). Likewise, last week there was a gap of -7.2% from the same week in 2019, however Easter occurred two weeks later in 2019 and the gap last week from the week of Easter in 2019 was slightly larger at -10.2%.
Diane Wehrle, insights director at MRI Springboard: “Easter this year was pre-empted by strong footfall performance every day during the week in the run up to Easter, and then the weekend itself was undoubtedly helped by the warm and sunny weather.
“Inevitably on Easter Sunday footfall was far below the previous week’s level (-39.4%) as stores were closed, and this impacted shopping centres and retail parks most (-66.5% and -56.7%). The drop in footfall in high streets on Easter Sunday from the week before was more modest at -18% and is likely to have been supported by restaurants and bars, many of which remained open. On Easter Monday, with rain and cooler weather, footfall dipped and was -17% lower than the week before across all UK retail destinations and -27.9% lower in high streets.
“Among the range of town types, coastal and historic towns were the winners over Easter which is not surprising given the warm and sunny weather and their huge attraction for day and holiday visits. On Good Friday, the greatest increase in footfall of +61.4% occurred in coastal towns followed by historic towns (+42%). On Easter Saturday the rises in footfall across the range of town types were far more modest apart from in coastal towns where footfall was +38.8% higher than the week before. Even on Easter Sunday, footfall in coastal towns was +3.2% higher than the week before, while in all other types of towns footfall declined noticeably. The cooler temperatures and rain on Monday meant that footfall in all key town types was much lower than the week before.
“Across the week as a whole, footfall rose across all parts of the UK, with the greatest week on week increases in the East (+15.9%), the South West (+17.3) and Wales (+18%), all of which have extensive coastlines and a strong representation of coastal towns.”
