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Balance settlements help drive June travel spend, Barclays reports

Holidaymakers settling the final costs for foreign trips helped boost spending with travel agents and airlines in June, latest Barclays data shows. 

Spending on holidays abroad continued to grow year-on-year last month, with agents and airlines up 5.5% and 3.2% respectively. 

Transactions rose by 13.3% with agents and 5.7% with airlines.


More: Spending growth at travel agents hits lowest level since last August

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Overseas travel outpaced staycations, demonstrated by domestic hotels, resorts and accommodation recording a decline of 1.8%.

This comes as 37% of people saying that when they go on holiday, they tend to spend more than they had planned to, while a fifth (20%) adopt a ‘treat yourself’ attitude when travelling, according to research by the bank.

Barclays said: “Encouragingly, while Brits maintain a steady approach to managing their budgets, consumer confidence showed signs of recovery compared to the previous month. 

“Consumers feel more optimistic about their ability to live within their means (up to 73%) and spend more on non-essential items (56%), while confidence in job security increased four percentage points to 49%. 

“Meanwhile, concerns about inflation fell by one percentage point, to 85%, while concerns about the rising cost of fuel eased, as spending on fuel declined 3.2%.

Barclays head of retail Karen Johnson said: “Once again, our data demonstrates the undeniable impact that unseasonable weather can have on consumer spending. 

“However, the dreariness didn’t dampen spending across the board, with takeaways, digital content and entertainment all benefitting from people sheltering at home, and hopefully we’ll see sustained interest in The Euros – regardless of England’s fate – and sunnier weather driving people to their local in July.”

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