Covid 19 - Impact on Christmas Trading Period Analysis

As Scotland and Wales rejoice today with the significant relaxation of their restrictions, it is interesting to see the release of Coronavirus and its impact on our spending habits and socialising plans around the Christmas season, UK: January 2022 on the Gov.UK platform.

The report looks at data from the UK as a whole and other key cities within the UK, on the effects of COVID-19 on society generally and the decisions people made during the Christmas period  and the effects of those decision on the economy.

It has 2 sections of interest to operators:-

• The impact on socialising over Christmas
• Attitudes towards the future.

On socialising, the report confirms how the impact differed around the country but states on a cross jurisdiction analysis in the week ending 14 December 2020, the seven-day average estimate of UK seated diners in the run-up to Christmas 2020 peaked at 61% of levels in the equivalent week of 2019. This is illustrated well the graph below.

Looking forward the report indicates that having experienced a further variant of Covid 19 people are more cautious stating

“During December 2021, more than a third of people (ranging between 35% and 39%) said they felt it would be more than a year before life returned to normal, according to the Opinions and Lifestyle Survey (OPN). This is an increase compared with the same time the year before; during December 2020, less than a quarter of people (ranging between 18% to 23%) said returning to normal would take more than a year.”

And

“During November and December 2021, the proportion of adults who felt that life would never return to normal (ranging between 13% and 16%) was higher than those who felt life would return to normal in six months or less (ranging between 7% and 9%).”