According to retail expert MRI Springboard, over the seven days last week from Sunday to Easter Saturday, footfall was +14.2% higher than the week before. This marks the largest week-on-week increase since the week leading up to Christmas 2022. In high streets it was even greater at +17%, alongside 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%. 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%. This was 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.

Over the three trading days of Easter (Good Friday, Easter Saturday and Easter Monday) footfall was +2.1% higher than the week before.

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, whilst 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 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%.

Commenting is 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. This impacted shopping centres and retail parks the 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.

“Amongst 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, whilst 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.

Over the three trading days of Easter, footfall was +3.7% higher than over Easter in 2022.

“Despite the rise in high street footfall from the week before, the gain from 2022 in high streets was just +0.7% whilst in retail parks and shopping centres the uplift from Easter 2022 was much greater at +6% and +7.8% respectively.

“Footfall over Easter remained -10.8% lower than over Easter in 2019 across all retail destinations. However, there were differences in the degree of recovery to pre-pandemic levels across the three key destination types. Footfall in retail parks bounced back to the 2019 level (+0.05% from 2019) supported by strong trading on Good Friday and Easter Monday. In high streets, however, despite a week-on-week rise of +4.8% over the weekend, there remained a gap of -16% from 2019, and in shopping centres the gap from 2019 was -9.8%.”