The West End has staged a remarkable revival from the “ghost town” depths of the pandemic with sales now regularly beating pre-Covid levels as tourists flood back, new figures show.
Almost exactly a year on from the lifting of the last Covid restrictions, data from the New West End Company (NWEC) — which represents hundreds of businesses on Oxford Street, Regent Street and Bond Street as well as in Mayfair — reveal how strongly London’s shopping and entertainment district has bounced back.
Sales in January were above their level of three years ago and retail and hospitality bosses say that they have seen a surge in confidence since Christmas with January — usually one of the quietest months of the year — booming. And the trend has continued into February. The three most successful categories in 2022 were health and beauty, with spending up seven per cent on 2019, electrical goods (up four per cent), and department stores, where sales were in line with 2019.
A stronger than expected return of foreign visitors has fuelled the recovery and means that on the busiest days even footfall, which has taken longer to recover than sales, exceeds levels recorded in January 2020.
Tourism volumes in London are now projected to climb back to 2019 levels by the middle of this year — with the King’s Coronation in May likely to prove a huge draw — or early 2024 at the latest.
Footfall in the West End and Mayfair, badly hit by working from home and the travel ban, is up by 56 per cent on a year ago, but still 11 per cent below pre-Covid levels. The last domestic Covid rules were lifted by Boris Johnson on February 24, 2022 in what was hoped would mark a return to normality for the West End. However, the invasion of Ukraine on the same day, staff shortages, rocketing costs, and more recently the rail strikes meant that the recovery was slow through much of 2022.
NWEC chief executive Dee Corsi said: “The West End has once again shown its resilience as it continues to recover strongly from the pandemic. Footfall across the district has steadily risen over the last 12 months, to the extent that we have seen days over the last quarter where it exceeded that in 2019.
“The success of the West End and wider capital is partly due to the return of high-spending international shoppers, with January sales outperforming pre-pandemic levels. However, this success could be even greater if growth measures such as the reintroduction of tax-free shopping were implemented.”
But there was also a warning that the recovery could slow down. An annual report for NWEC by property firm Colliers published today predicts it will be 2025 before annual turnover once again passes the £10 billion peak of 2019.
