September saw the biggest selling days of the year for tourism and exhibits as people flocked to Ratheniska, Co. Laois for the National Ploughing Championships. Ticket sales were led by customers from Cork, Tipperary, Limerick, Galway and Wexford at the annual event which is the largest of its kind in the world.
That’s according to the latest monthly Spend Trend figures from AIB.
As Debs season gets underway, September also saw the highest spending days for clothing rental on Monday 30th and Thursday 26th respectively; and the highest spending day for cosmetics, on Tuesday 10th. On that day AIB customers spent €529,000 on cosmetics, 89% of which was online.
Football gaming fans drove the highest spend on digital games this year on Friday 20th, the day EA Sports FC 25 went on presale and the second-best day was on Friday 27th, the day the game went on general sale.
The hospitality sector had a quieter month, with hotel spend down 19%, restaurant spend down 12% and pub spend down 11%, likely driven by back to school and work following summer holidays. Despite this, restaurants had their best day of the year so far on Saturday 28th September.
The monthly data was compiled from 71 million debit and credit card transactions in store and online during September 2024 and has been anonymised and aggregated. Data provided by AIB features one of the most comprehensive and accurate data sets on consumer spending in Ireland.
Spend Trend September 2024 (all data points compared to the previous month, unless otherwise stated).
- Overall spending decreased by c. 2%.
- Electric Vehicle charging spend increased 5% in September compared to the previous month and it increased 56% compared to September 2023.
- Airline travel spend increased 9%, the biggest increases were in Kilkenny (+20%), Tipperary (+20%), and Wexford (+18%).
- Electronic spend increased 10%, likely driven by back to school and college spend. The highest spending increase in electronics was in Carlow (+27%), Laois (+22%) and Dublin (+15%).
Speaking about the data, Adrian Moynihan, Head of Consumer at AIB said “While overall spend was slightly down compared to August, this is to be expected given the end of the summer period and an associated drop in hospitality spend in particular. The National Ploughing Championships did however buck this trend and drove the biggest spend for tourism and exhibits so far this year. As well as the Ploughing Championships, September is also synonymous for back-to-school and this can be seen throughout the spend data this month. Spend on items like electronics was up by 10% and clothing rental had its highest spending days of the year too, driven by the Debs season. AIB’s robust data provides unique insights into customer spend patterns and also helps businesses to better understand customer behaviours and plan their activities accordingly.”