Shopping tourists take advantage of weak sterling

The holiday season saw a surge in shopping tourism taking advantage of the weak pound. According to data released by Worldpay, over 725 million pounds was spent by foreign visitors in the month of December. Lured by the 'bargain' prices of luxury goods and fashion, these 'Brexit Tourists', as they have been dubbed, helped the high street and in-store spending figures.

Worldpay, who process payment data, suggest that foreign card spend rose by a 22 per cent or 130 million pounds in December 2015.

Tourist spending has been key to sales of luxury goods, with London’s West End department stores seeing a boost of over a third last year. Spending was not limited to London though, with Manchester and Edinburgh seeing a jump of 19 per cent and 24 per cent respectively noted the Retail Gazette.

The surge of Chinese tourism continued over the month with Chinese card spend up 24 per cent and visitors from Hong Kong spending an extra 69 per cent. UAE shoppers also flooded Britain’s high streets with spend up 31 per cent, compared to French and German spend increases of 14 per cent.

“Bricks and mortar retailers have not had things all their own way this Christmas, with the latest reports suggesting UK consumers are increasingly doing the bulk of their shopping online,” Worldpay chief marketing officer James Frost said.

“So the influx of free-spending tourists we saw in December will have been a welcome boost for retailers looking to balance the books.”

Photo credit:Red telephone box, Picture by M0tty, source: Wikimedia Commons