Shopper footfall across Northern Ireland bucked a UK-wide trend in August by actually increasing, new figures show.
Ironically the positive numbers came despite many days of anti-immigration rioting and disorder, mainly in Belfast.
And that has prompted retail bosses to heap praise on the authorities for keeping a lid on the disruption and allowing customers to continue shopping.
Data from the NI Retail Consortium and Sensormatic IQ covering the four weeks from July 28 to August 24 show that overall Northern Ireland footfall rose by 1.4% in August after dropping by 2.2% in July.
This was the biggest increase of the four UK regions, where average footfall dropped by 0.4% year on year.
Footfall across the north’s main shopping centres fell by 2.4% in August, an improvement on the 3.8% July decline, while in Belfast the shopper numbers over the period were down just 0.2% year on year.
NI Retail Consortium director Neil Johnston said: “Retailing remains challenging across the UK, but there is no doubt that the recent street disorder and protests made things more difficult.
“Across the UK the number of shoppers is unfortunately continuing to decline slightly year on year. August wasn’t too bad with only modest declines across England and Wales, and Northern Ireland leading the way with a welcome 1.4% increase compared to the year before.
“Belfast saw a decline of 0.2% compared to last year, and when we look at the detailed weekly figures, we see that the last two weeks in August have been quite good.
“But it’s clear that the first two weeks of the month were poor. Yet the street disorder and protests in small areas of Belfast and in particular around the city centre unsurprisingly deterred shoppers.”
He added: “Retailers are very grateful for the work of the police in dealing with the disorder and thankfully damage was relatively slight compared to other cities.
“We very much hope that retailers and their staff can concentrate on continuing to work to provide vibrant shopping experiences for their customers and that there is no further disruption.
“In Northern Ireland retailers and consumers are experienced in getting back to normal as quickly as possible and focusing on the positives going forward.”
Andy Sumpter, retail consultant at Sensormatic Solutions, added: “Despite the unrest at the beginning of the month, a strong footfall performance in the second half of August, helped by an easing of price inflation, fair weather and a boost from school and bank holiday trade, saw year-on-year shopper traffic rise to its highest level since March.
“With all destination types improving on July’s visitor numbers, retailers will be hoping that the resilience seen in August, with footfall returning a positive year-on-year performance for the second time in the last six months, will lead to longer-term growth for store traffic.”
