UK consumer spending falls by 1% over December – but hospitality bucks the trend

16 January 2019 by
UK consumer spending falls by 1% over December – but hospitality bucks the trend

UK consumer spending continued to decline in December 2018, with face-to-face expenditure falling by 1.6% while hospitality spend rose strongly.

Data from the Visa UK consumer spending index found overall spending fell by 1%, the strongest decline since April 2018. Face-to-face spending fell by 1.6% over the month, but was offset by a 0.5% increase in ecommerce spends.

European principal economist for Visa, Adolfo Laurenti, said: "The further decline in UK consumer spending in December 2018 is a disappointment, but not a surprise.

"Notwithstanding a backdrop of low unemployment and rising wages, households remained very cautious at the end of the year - as they were for most of 2018.

"An acceleration in spending at hotels, restaurants and bars (+7.6% year-on-year) suggests that some categories of discretionary spending are holding up better than the market as a whole. And the modest pickup in ecommerce point to the resilience of digital channels of distribution, a favourable long-term trend that recent woes have not derailed."

Get The Caterer every week on your smartphone, tablet, or even in good old-fashioned hard copy (or all three!).
The Caterer Breakfast Briefing Email

Start the working day with The Caterer’s free breakfast briefing email

Sign Up and manage your preferences below

Check mark icon
Thank you

You have successfully signed up for the Caterer Breakfast Briefing Email and will hear from us soon!

Jacobs Media is honoured to be the recipient of the 2020 Queen's Award for Enterprise.

The highest official awards for UK businesses since being established by royal warrant in 1965. Read more.

close

Ad Blocker detected

We have noticed you are using an adblocker and – although we support freedom of choice – we would like to ask you to enable ads on our site. They are an important revenue source which supports free access of our website's content, especially during the COVID-19 crisis.

trade tracker pixel tracking