Summer spending recovered slightly last month despite the continuing bad weather, a new survey shows today.
The AIB August Spend Trend report reveals that overall spending rose by 1% in August compared to the previous month.
The bank its report suggests that due to the bad weather many people decided to stay home with spending on homewares up 18% – the biggest increase across all sectors analysed.
The report also shows that the hospitality sector had a mixed month in August after a decline in July.
Spend in hotels and restaurants was up 2% and 1% respectively in August, but it slipped by 1% in pubs, during what would traditionally be a busy month.
Breaking down the figures, AIB said that spending in pubs by people from Monaghan saw the biggest drop of 7% but Westmeath bucked the trend, with pub spending by people from the county up 17%.
People from Mayo had the biggest increase in spend in hotels, with the amounts rising by 13%, while people from Louth had the biggest decrease of 8%.
Spending in restaurants increased most among people from Roscommon – up 4% – and decreased most among people from Limerick – down 2%.
But overall spend in restaurants is up 10% on an annual basis, AIB noted.
Today’s figure also show that online spending decreased by 1% last month, while there were increases for spend via digital wallet (up 3%), chip and pin (up 2%) and contactless (up 1%).
Despite the slight decrease in August, online spending increased 15% year on year, AIB added.
John Brennan, Head of SME Banking at AIB, said August was another wet month so it was no surprise that people were choosing to stay indoors and spend on their homes.
“While spending increased slightly for hotels and restaurants in the month, it was down slightly for pubs, which is disappointing as summer is traditionally a busy time for the sector,” Mr Brennan said.
“It’s also interesting to note the differences in spend across different parts of the country, for example people from Westmeath had an increase in pub spending of 17%, despite the sector being down overall. These insights are vital for businesses, to help them plan accordingly and grow their business,” Mr Brennan added.
AIB said its monthly data was compiled from 70 million debit and credit card transactions in store and online during August.
Article Source: Spending on homewares up 18% in August, but pub spend dips 1% – AIB – RTE