What will consumer spending look like this holiday season?

We explore consumer spending intentions across four categories for this holiday season, compared to previous seasons.
16 November 2021
holiday spending
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As the festive season approaches and people begin making plans to gather with family and friends, what will consumer spending look like this year?

Kantar recently conducted a global online survey exploring how spending for the holidays differs this season compared to previous holiday seasons. What categories will people be spending the most on? Discover some of our findings here, as well as additional answers within the complete report.

Food and drink will see the biggest increase

Out of the categories we explored, “food and drink” will see the highest global increase this season. Almost a quarter (23%) of people globally plan to spend more in this category and only 17% report intentions to spend less.

Respondents in India (43%) and US (25%) were more likely to say they intend to spend more this season than respondents in the other markets we interviewed. Only 12% of French respondents and 16% of German respondents plan to spend more on food and drink this season.

When looking at spend by household sizes globally, a third of those with children believe they will see an increase in their spending this season (31%) compared to just 11% of single adults.

 holiday food and drink spending

Travel will see the biggest decrease

Spending on travel is expected to be down this holiday season according to those we interviewed across eight global markets. Almost 4 out of 10 have intentions of spending less this festive season.

holiday spending

Spending on travel in Asia will be reduced the most, with as many as 7 out of 10 of consumers in China (69%) and over half in Singapore (55%) reporting their intention to spend less on travel this festive season. Brazil (39%) and France (29%) also reported to notable drops in spending.

When comparing travel spending by household sizes, more respondents with children in the household report their travel budgets are lower this season (43%) compared to multi-adult (37%) and single-adult (27%) households.

Get more answers

For more findings from this study, access the complete Community Report: Connecting with Families Reuniting. Find more on spending intentions as well as additional country-specific answers on gathering over the past 18 months, travel plans and more.

About this study

This research was conducted online among 8,001 people across eight global markets: the US, UK, France, Germany, India, Singapore, China and Brazil.

Respondents were sourced from the Kantar Profiles’ Audience Network. All interviews were conducted as online self-completion and collected based on local age and gender census distributions between 19 and 28 October 2021.

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