1% less spend in March on-trade

Consumers spent 1% less in the Hotels, Restaurants & Bars category last March for the second month running, with the rate of decline only slightly slower than the Leap Day-affected reading from the previous month according to the latest data from Visa's Irish Consumer Spending Index which measures expenditure across all payment types (cash, cheques and electronic payments).

Expenditure on Food and Drink rose “modestly on an annual basis in March” by 1.4%. Spending growth has now been recorded in this sector in three of the past four months.

Visa’s ICSI saw a 4.2% year-on-year increase in overall expenditure pointing to solid expansion, but this still represents slower than average growth since the series began in September 2014.

For the first quarter of 2017 as a whole spending was up 2.5% year-on-year, with the rate of expansion slowing for the third successive quarter.

Transport & Communication remained the strongest performer on a sectoral basis, seeing growth in spending quicken to a four-month high of 12% year-on-year.

Four of the eight monitored sectors posted a return to growth in March following declines in February.

A particularly strong rebound was seen in Recreation & Culture where spending was up 7.5% on the year, the strongest rise since November last year.

“Irish consumer spending continues to rise albeit at a reduced pace, with March recording the sixth month in a row where the rate of growth was less than five per cent,” commented Philip Konopik, Country Manager for Visa in Ireland.