Essential Trends BID Market Intelligence Issue 86 November 2017

Transcription

1 October 2017 p1 Essential Trends BID Market Intelligence Issue 86 November 2017

2 Introduction Welcome to the November edition of Essential Trends. Following the busy summer trading period and before the important Christmas season, the usual slowing of retail sales in the capital during October were experienced again this year. However, the city outperformed both the rest of Scotland and the UK during this timeframe. A moderate sales increase of 1.5%, in the city when compared with a UK figure of 0.2% and a decrease of 0.8% in the rest of the country is a positive position. Leisure and hospitality sales continued their long running positive trends with a further 4.9% year on year growth during October. The last couple of months of the year is always a crucial time for our city s retailers and with a superb Christmas offering in the BID area to support visitors and shoppers coming to the city centre, we hope this aides a positive result for all retailers and leisure operators. The city s international airport continues to break its own records with another impressive month. Crucially the upsurge in international visitors with a 12% increase year on year contributes a significant and vitally important economic impact to our city. Roddy Smith Chief Executive Contents 03 Footfall 08 Sales Monitors 10 Parking 12 Edinburgh Airport Edinburgh Footfall Index As reported in the previous issues of Trends, we have all 39 footfall counters in place across Edinburgh, with 19 in the BID Area. We are no longer collating data from the old counters so will not have yearly comparisons until we have like for like figures. The new counters enable us to have a much wider spread across the BID, which allows us to build a clearer picture of footfall in the city centre and will help us to monitor and report on the trends by street and area. There are nineteen counters in the BID area, just under half of the 39 counters that have been installed. The nineteen BID footfall counters results represent over 65% of the total footfall counted - over 10 million people - in the BID area in October and 64% - over 9 million people in November. This months figures are reporting for the whole of October and up to 26th November. p3 November figures up to 26/11/2017

3 p5 In November Princes Street was the busiest street in the BID with 4,614,418 people counted - down by 1.8% on October. Footfall in Edinburgh follows seasonal trends with August and December typically being the peaks in the year. It is therefore expected that footfall will dip following the summer during the Christmas period. In November the cross streets (Hanover, Frederick and Castle Streets) together have seen 1,994,226 people pass the counters, George Street has had 1,903,579 with Rose Street seeing 1,082,531 and St Andrew Square and Multrees Walk having 397,068. The percentage of all Edinburgh footfall counted within the BID during November was 64% - the same as in October. The following pages look more closely at the breakdown of these figures by time of the day and by day of the week.

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5 Sales Monitors for October 2017 Edinburgh s retail sales growth slowed in October Retailers in Scotland s capital recorded a moderate sales increase of 1.5% compared to the same month last year. However, their Scottish peers were in the red, facing a marginal sales decrease of 0.8%. A softer sales growth was seen across the whole UK, where sales were 0.2% up on a year earlier. Retailers participating in the Retail Monitoring Programme reported these figures for October The figures for Edinburgh are based on a sample of city centre retailers. The figures for Scotland and the UK were reported by the BRC-KPMG Retail Sales Monitor and the BRC Scottish Retail Sales Monitor. Within the hospitality sector, businesses in Edinburgh which take part in the Hospitality Monitoring Programme also noted a healthy 4.9% turnover growth when comparing October 2017 with October Ewan MacDonald-Russell, Head of Policy and External Affairs, Scottish Retail Consortium, commenting on the Scottish figures said: Hallowe en wasn t enough to stave off hard times on the High Street for non-food retailers who suffered the most challenging month s performance in almost five years. Overall, even continued strong food sales weren t enough to rescue October s figures, with overall Scottish retail sales dipping in real terms by 0.6%. The gap between grocery and non-food sales continues to grow. Food sales are still relatively strong, although still being partially being driven by inflation. However, on the high street there will be less optimism, with clothing and electrical lines struggling in October. November will be a crucial month for those high street retailers, with promotions around Black Friday likely to be integral to sales success for some in the crucial Christmas shopping period. Those retailers will face a tough act balancing giving customers the best deals to stimulate sales whilst not forfeiting margins already eroded by higher costs. There is much which Ministers need to pay close attention to ahead of the Scottish Budget next month. It s clear consumers are feeling concerned about the economy, and mooted income tax rises can t be helping consumer confidence. That s why our members believe the Scottish Government should put growing the economy at the heart of their Budget. p9 You are sent this information before publication in Essential Trends if you agree to participate in the City Centre Monitoring Project. For more information about how to participate in the Tunover Monitoring Project please contact STR, who manages this project on our behalf: Tereza@ljresearch.co.uk or

6 p11 Frightfully good figures More than 1.2 million passengers used Edinburgh Airport in October, making it the busiest October on record for the terminal. It s the seventh consecutive month with over one million passengers using Scotland s busiest airport. A total of 1,226,109 people came through the terminal in October, an increase of 8.5% on the same month last year. International passengers continued to surge, up 12.4% on October 2016 at 760,296. Chief Executive of Edinburgh Airport Gordon Dewar said: It may have been Halloween in October but passengers weren t scared to travel, with Edinburgh Airport recording another record month and the seventh consecutive month of more than one million people coming through the terminal. Those are outstanding figures and once again shows the appetite that is out there for people to travel out of and into Edinburgh, especially international passengers who continue to put Edinburgh at the top of their destinations list. We re working with our airline partners to expand and extend choice for passengers, whether that is a ski break or some winter sun, and we re seeing the benefits of that already as we close in on another record year for Scotland s busiest airport. Growth in passengers came from the following: Ryanair s six new routes to Milan Bergamo, Girona, Porto, Vigo and Warsaw Modlin which launched in March and the new three per week service to Eindhoven, which launched on the 1st of September. Overall more people flew with easyjet with more flights operating to city destinations such as Geneva, Amsterdam, London Gatwick, Paris CDG, Basel and Prague. Bilbao was launched on 30th April and has proved popular with the Edinburgh market. Jet2.com operated more services to popular holiday destinations including Las Palmas, Malaga, Pula, Split, Tenerife and Las Palmas. Girona, Almeria, Fuerteventura, Murcia and Naples which have all launched since last year were also popular. More passengers travelled between Oslo and Edinburgh with Norwegian as more flights operated and the aircraft were fuller than last year. The new services to Stewart International (New York), Providence Rhode Island and Bradley International (Hartford/Connecticut) further boosted passenger numbers. Eurowings launched a new six per week service to Munich in March to join its services to Cologne and Dusseldorf. Flybe s London Heathrow service which launched for the start of the Summer season in March Gordon Robertson, Director of Communications or gordon_robertson@edinburghairport.com

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