Holidays, airline and cruise bookings helped to drive up levels of consumer spending last month as pandemic measures eased.
According to the Nationwide Spending Report, Brits spent more money at the start of this year, with consumer spending in January up 18% year-on-year, despite the current rising cost of living.
The report, which analysed nearly 200 million debit and credit card and direct debit transactions, shows just over £7.5 billion was spent by the building society’s members in January.
It said non-essential spending “rocketed” by 43% as people booked holidays, flights and cruises for 2022.
“Consumers are feeling confident enough to already start to think about and book their holidays for the year, with total spending on airline travel (+408%), cruises (899%) and holidays (379%) all seeing a significant rise compared to January last year,” said the report.
“The number of transactions in each of these three categories have risen by 400% or more compared to last year.
“These are also the only areas where there has been a significant increase in spend in January compared to December.”
Mark Nalder, Nationwide’s head of payments, said: “Spending on holidays, airline travel and cruises played a big role in that [growth in non-essential spend] as consumers start 2022 in a positive frame of mind about the outlook for Covid-19 and about their travel plans for the coming year.”
He added: “We expect spending to grow in February as the lifting of Plan B restrictions and the return to offices boosts spending in areas such as travel, eating and drinking and leisure and recreation.”