How can we measure the merriment created over the festive season? Christmas can be a time that showcases the value of our town and city centres or brings their short-comings under the spotlight. What though are the national benchmarks that place leaders can draw-on to help give a rounded portrayal of town and city performance during the festive period?
Identifying the sales that count locally
We will hear a lot in the run-up to Christmas about retail sales. It will begin with analysis of consumer spending over the Black Friday period. As place leaders it will be important to look beneath the headlines and identify the trends that count in representing local high streets and their value to customers. The ONS’ monthly Retail Sales report, for example, breaks the overall figures down to include sectors more indicative of the independent town centre offer that helps retain local spend. We can watch to see how this year’s sales compare to Christmas 2023, where specialist food and small clothing retailers, for example, were 40% and 30% up on their 2022 baseline, and ahead of overall more modest December sales. Conversely, we can see if this November’s sales figures continue to be boosted by people spreading costs, including through Black Friday promotions.
Fewer people, spending more on hospitality
The role of town and city centres in bringing together and making merry can be gauged against national benchmarks provided through the CGA RSM Hospitality Business Tracker. In December 2023 this indicated like-for-like sales growth of 9.6%, 8.3% and 5.6% respectively for pubs, restaurants and bars, though with 5% fewer people going out, as high inflation put pressure on spending for some. With currently trending internet search keywords including ‘winter themed pop-ups’ and ‘Christmas experiences’, there is an expectation that in 2024 hospitality businesses will collaborate more with town centre promotion and events to generate a buzz for both.
Tracking footfall’s gradual recovery
Tracking footfall trends is a good indicator of whether more people are out and about enjoying town and city centres, and it will be instructive to see if the gradual post-pandemic recovery continues over this Christmas. Analysis in the High Street Task Force Footfall Report 2023 indicated three footfall tends around the Christmas period:
- The overall drop for the four weeks before Christmas was 12.2% compared to pre-pandemic levels in 2019, with and 3.1% improvement on 2022.
- The Black Friday drop in footfall was 17.4%, which was 2% worse higher than 2022.
- The post-Christmas sales period recorded a drop in footfall volume of 13.9%, which was 2.4% better than in 2022.
Changes in Christmas footfall relative to the rest of the year will be determined by the function of a town or city centre. A significant, month-round increase is only experienced by the limited number of places with a high proportion of comparison retailers selling clothes, electrical goods and gifts.
Accommodating economic disparities
How good are our town and city centres at attracting high-spending customers and what is their role in providing for residents still suffering from cost of living rises? Place leaders need to consider their role in responding to disparities in economic wellbeing in the U.K. accentuated by the Pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis. This trend, articulated in analysis by Mail Metro Media, necessitates town centre marketing and events to be mindful of how to monitor and meet the needs of three different types of consumers:
- Healthy Households (20% of the UK population) are likely to have a Christmas that closely resembles the pre-Covid years.
- Recovering Residences will also experience a relatively normal Christmas, albeit with some cutbacks.
- Difficult Dwellings(34% of the UK population) are likely to still be feeling the pinch of the cost-of-living crisis too deeply to have a ‘normal’ Christmas.
How do hospitality businesses, events, ‘third spaces’ or public transport, for example, better cater for young people, families or older people on tighter budgets at this festive time of year? As with all aspects of place management that cross-over into providing a social value, it will be important for organisations such as BIDS or place partnerships to be clear about their aims and approaches in serving differing needs within their communities.
Boosting green and equitable travel
How people are able to travel to town and city centres can both strengthen their sustainability and provide equitable opportunities for access? The National Travel Survey published annually in December showed last year that the most common purpose of trips made across England was for shopping, at 18%. The proportion of trips that were walked was 3% higher in 2023 than pre-pandemic in 2019. Just over a third of overall trips were made sustainably, with 29%, 4%, 2% and 2% made by walking, bus, train and bicycle respectively.
According to the Sustrans Walking and Cycling Index for 2023, 80% of city residents would be encouraged to walk more if there were more shops and everyday services, such as banks and post offices, close to their home. The most popular change to encourage residents to walk more is to create nicer places along streets to rest (78%).
The Department for Transport’s newly published Annual Bus Statistics, show….
Promoting staycations and day trips
Visit Britain’s Domestic Bank Holiday Trip Tracker provides insights into visitors’ intentions ahead of Bank Holidays with the next pre-Christmas version due in the week before the festive period. For Christmas 2023, amongst the 16% of the population who ‘definitely’ or might have taken a holiday or a short break in England, 47% were planning a trip to a city or large town. Among those who would definitely not take a holiday or short break in England (60% of GB adults), the most common reasons are ‘I cannot afford it’ and ‘rising cost of living’.
In 2023, this tracker reported that 23% of adults in Britain ‘definitely’ planned to take a day trip between Christmas and New Year. Visiting a Christmas Market (38%), shopping at post-Christmas sales (33%) and going out for other Christmas activities such as ice skating (20%), were amongst the popular reasons given for festive day trips.
Combining enterprise, enjoyment and environment
When you read headlines of retail sales that will begin with analysis of Black Friday over the coming days, ask yourself is that “spend to what end?”. Here we offer a taste of the national benchmarks available to give a more rounded perspective of the performance of our town and city centres at Christmas. The next step is to lead the local conversations by seeking to gauge local impacts against them. Our belief at the People & Places Partnership, is that its important to pull together a range of evidence to measure the combined potential of places for enterprise, enjoyment and environmental sustainability. .
Further information
At People & Places, we are big believers in assessing and tracking communities’ priorities through a variety of impact indicators, though increasingly we focus our work with stakeholders on delivering the simple, collective outcome of “getting more smiling faces in town and city centres”. Read more about our approach, including our focus on “bringing facts and faces to town centres“.
The picture shows Mill Road Winter Fair in Cambridge, local to People & Places’ offices. It describes itself as a celebration of community along one of the most diverse and vibrant roads in Cambridge. Usually held on the first Saturday of December, the Fair is run by volunteers and brings together local businesses and organisations, shops and stallholders, musicians, artists and dancers in a “one day of festival joy”. As well as the crowds, the participation of Mill Road’s diverse mix of largely, independent businesses is striking -nearly every one has a stall outside its door.
