What will consumer spending look like this festive season?

We explore consumer spending intentions across four categories for this holiday season, compared to previous seasons.
16 November 2021
holiday spending
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As the festive season approaches and people begin making plans to gather with family and friends, what will consumer spending look like this year?

Kantar recently conducted a global online survey exploring how spending for the holidays differs this season compared to previous holiday seasons. What categories will people be spending the most on? Discover some of our findings here, as well as additional answers within the complete report.

Food and drink will see the biggest increase

In the UK, spending will be mostly unchanged in comparison to previous years. According to consumers, food and drink will see the highest increase (18%) whilst their spend on travel will be reduced for a quarter of respondents.

UK festive spending 2021

Food and drink will also see the highest global increase this season. Almost a quarter (23%) of people globally plan to spend more in this category and only 17% report intentions to spend less.

When looking at spend by household sizes globally, a third of those with children believe they will see an increase in their food-and-drink spending this season (31%) compared to just 11% of single adults.

 holiday food and drink spending

In the UK, it is a similar picture: 26% of those with children believe they spend more on food and drink this festive season, compared to 11% of single adults and 15% of those in multi-adult households.

Spending on travel will be down

Spending on travel is expected to be down this holiday season according to those we interviewed across eight global markets. Almost 4 out of 10 have intentions of spending less this festive season.

In the UK, 26% of those surveyed who have children believe their spending on travel will be lower than previous years – but 14% of the same group think it will increase.

Get more answers

For more findings from this study, access the complete Community Report: Connecting with Families Reuniting. Find more on spending intentions as well as additional country-specific answers on gathering over the past 18 months, travel plans and more.

About this study

This research was conducted online among 8,001 people across eight global markets: the UK, US, France, Germany, India, Singapore, China and Brazil.

Respondents were sourced from the Kantar Profiles’ Audience Network. All interviews were conducted as online self-completion and collected based on local age and gender census distributions between 19 and 28 October 2021.

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