‘City centre was full every day thanks to Christmas market’

Christmas markets introduced vacationers and locals to metropolis centres and Excessive Streets as 2024 got here to an in depth, based on newest figures.

Retail analysts MRI discovered customers had been “benefiting from festive occasions”, driving a 50% rise in customers in market cities in contrast with Christmas Eve 2023.

“Folks need a terrific day trip, in addition to getting their items,” mentioned Hargreaves Lansdown’s retail skilled Susannah Streeter.

Bristol dealer Michelle Kingscott added: “There was a terrific environment, a great deal of vacationers and native individuals, the store was buzzing.”

Ms Kingscott, who runs an unbiased card and present store, mentioned the town centre was full on daily basis.

But it surely was the large German-style market that introduced the crowds in, whatever the many native critics who derided the corny music and “over-priced bratwurst” on social media.

Throughout the nation, German Christmas markets have proliferated, with wood chalet model buying and selling items, mulled wine, sausages, and twinkly lights.

Within the centre of Bristol, the market now attracts individuals from throughout England and additional afield.

Ms Kingscott mentioned the town centre was “actually busy” and other people got here from everywhere in the world to purchase her regionally produced artwork and comical playing cards.

“We have had individuals from Poland, Germany, America – they love the Bristolian humour,” she added.

“Christmas was simply loopy in right here,” mentioned one other dealer, Marcus Kent.

He runs Bristol’s Excelsior Comics, a specialist store promoting comics and board video games, which he says has hit a candy spot.

“Board video games actually took off after Covid, and other people out of the blue being locked away from their pals,” he mentioned.

“Folks simply actually admire the social side of a bodily recreation, one thing you need to share area with your folks with to get pleasure from.”

Between Christmas and New Yr, city centres drew larger crowds than out of city procuring malls, based on the analysis.

Excessive Avenue footfall was up 20% on Dec 27 2024, in contrast with a 12 months earlier, however retail parks grew much less, by simply 14%.

However one retail centre bucked the pattern by internet hosting a variety of festive occasions.

In Avenue, Somerset, Clarks Village is a designer outlet centre constructed the place as soon as the well-known shoe manufacturing unit stood.

To lure prospects out within the chilly climate, advertising bosses placed on a problem to get record numbers of Santa’s skating on ice.

They broke the file, and together with different eye-catching occasions, gross sales within the final quarter of the 12 months grew by 6.1% on the earlier Christmas.

Retail analyst Susannah Streeter mentioned the figures confirmed customers are “returning to pre-Pandemic habits”.

Extra individuals wish to strive on garments and footwear earlier than they purchase, she mentioned.

“However principally, individuals wish to have a great time. That is why we’re seeing Christmas markets rising as a pattern as individuals wish to get pleasure from consuming, ingesting and socialising, in addition to procuring,” she added.