Shoppers in Luton made the most of early sales in the run-up to Christmas in The Mall, but it was Luton’s Indoor Market that saw the biggest surge in spenders over the festive season.
Footfall was up ten per cent from last year in the Indoor Market, with around 50,000 - 60,000 shoppers visiting the market in the week before Christmas Eve.
In The Mall, footfall was up one or two per cent before Christmas, and down one or two per cent for the Boxing Day sales.
Indoor Market Manager David Gibbs said: “The traders will never say exactly how much money they are making, but the general consensus is that they have been really happy with the run-up to Christmas. It’s very positive.”
The market was closed on Boxing Day but reopened on December 27 to continued heavy footfall.
The Mall marketing manager Julian Dow said footfall figures there were to be expected.
He said: “It’s too soon to get the spending figures which are far more accurate than footfall, but footfall is about level across the period, and what we expected.
“It was a slow start in December, it seemed people were holding off until closer to Christmas. In the run-up to Christmas Eve we had strong sales. Boxing Day sales were in line with the national figures. Looking ahead, 2013 will be another tough and difficult year for retail following on from 2012. However, we’ve had three good openings of new stores before Christmas; H &M, Pandora and Stormfront, and they are all very happy with performance.”
Nationally, an estimated 10 million shoppers are believed to have spent about £2.9bn on Boxing Day.
There was an average 20 per cent increase in the number of shoppers on the High Street nationally.