Spending Locally In Action

Spending continued to be strong across the core retail sector in July, with the underlying value of payments transacted through Paymark core retail merchants in July up by 11.4% on year-ago levels.

Growth occurred across most sectors, including year-on-year nationwide growth amongst café, bar and restaurant merchants for the first month since February.

There was also spending growth experienced amongst Accommodation merchants in some regions for the first time in recent months. Nationwide the Accommodation spend through Paymark was 10.9% below July 2019 levels but Accommodation spending was above last year in these regions: Bay of Plenty, Gisborne, Hawkes Bay, Taranaki, Wanganui, Wairarapa, Marlborough, Nelson, West Coast, South Canterbury. Notably Accommodation merchants in Southland and Otago are still running below year-ago levels, suggesting the strong domestic school holiday surge outside the major centres was not enough to counter the international downturn in all tourism hotspots.

Outside of the retail sector, spending patterns remained mixed. Not surprisingly spending through travel merchants remains well below year-ago levels.

© Scoop Media