Footfall at Wesfield's London malls up over Christmas

Westfield's super malls in West and East London bucked the trend for falling footfall across the high street and shopping centres by reporting an increase in visitor numbers over the festive season.

The malls in White City and Stratford clocked up 14.1m visitors over the Christmas trading period, up 1% on the prior year. The increased traffic was dominated by three main trading peaks: Black Friday, when 850,000 visitors shopped during the three-day event; "Super Weekend" (the last weekend before Christmas) with 800,000 visitors; and Boxing Day when 320,000 shoppers turned out making it the biggest single shopping day.

Westfield UK and Europe chief marketing officer Myf Ryan said the malls' focus on experiential retail help it defy the general downward footfall trend. "Over the Christmas period, we offered many unique and immersive experiences to our customers. With over 70m visitors coming to the centres each year, we are looking forward to creating even more exciting experiences and activities for our customers to enjoy in 2018.”

“Boxing Day is Westfield’s busiest day of the Christmas trading period. The significance of the Boxing Day sales has been questioned in recent years but the sheer volumes of shoppers in our centres today show there is a huge appetite from the British public to get out early and look for the very best Boxing Day," Ryan added.

In 2016, 14m visitors to the centre spent on average £660,000 per hour taking the season's total to half a billion pounds spend. The 2017 figures look set to surpass that number by around 3.1%.

Retail intelligence company Springboard reported that overall footfall on Boxing Day was down -5.9% on the high street with shopping centres down -3.5% and out of town locations down -2.1%.