April spend remains flat as consumers watch pockets
“The hospitality and staycation sector enjoyed a positive April with school holidays driving a rise in consumer spending in seaside towns and hotels across the country,” said John Brennan.
This indicates that consumer spend was up only 0.4% overall during the month.
But consumers made the most of the extended Easter Break with spending across hotels, restaurants and pubs up during the month.
Pub spend was up 4%, with restaurant spend up 9% and hotel spend up 19% in April.
On average, consumers’ card spend topped over €80 million a day on throughout the month – the same amount as was spent per day in March; however the amount of transactions in April declined by two million as consumers spent more per transaction, likely due to bigger ticket spend over the Easter break according to John Brennan, Head of SME at AIB.
While Dublin accounted for the highest amount of overall hotel spend during the month of April it was coastal destinations that saw the highest increase in spending with Donegal up 27% followed by Sligo (26%) and Kerry (25%).
All comparisons are based on April versus March unless otherwise stated.
The data was compiled from over one million card transactions carried out by Irish consumers during April and has been anonymised and aggregated.
Data provided by AIB features one of the most comprehensive and accurate data sets on consumer spending in Ireland. Based on this data, AIB also revealed that online transactions were down 4% during April while digital wallet transactions rose again, up 8% on March as the digital payment method continues to increase in popularity.
Spending among those under the age of 25 was down during the month (by 2%). However spending among all other age groups was up during the month, with the highest increase from those between the age of 55 and 64, (up 4%).
Irish consumers spent over €63,000 per hour in the hotel sector in April.
”The hospitality and staycation sector enjoyed a positive April with school holidays driving a rise in consumer spending in seaside towns and hotels across the country,” said John Brennan.
