{"id":209437,"date":"2025-01-07T05:10:18","date_gmt":"2025-01-07T05:10:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/07\/city-centre-was-full-every-day-thanks-to-christmas-market\/"},"modified":"2025-01-07T05:10:18","modified_gmt":"2025-01-07T05:10:18","slug":"city-centre-was-full-every-day-thanks-to-christmas-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/07\/city-centre-was-full-every-day-thanks-to-christmas-market\/","title":{"rendered":"‘City centre was full every day thanks to Christmas market’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"BBCBBC<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Thousands visited Bath and Bristol’s Christmas Markets in the month before Christmas<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Christmas markets brought tourists and locals to city centres and High Streets as 2024 came to a close, according to latest figures. <\/p>\n

Retail analysts MRI found shoppers were “making the most of festive events”, driving a 50% rise in shoppers in market towns compared with Christmas Eve 2023. <\/p>\n

“People want a great day out, as well as getting their gifts,” said Hargreaves Lansdown’s retail expert Susannah Streeter.<\/p>\n

Bristol trader Michelle Kingscott added: “There was a great atmosphere, loads of tourists and local people, the shop was buzzing.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Ms Kingscott, who runs an independent card and gift shop, said the city centre was full every day.<\/p>\n

But it was the big German-style market that brought the crowds in, regardless of the many local critics who derided the corny music and “over-priced bratwurst” on social media.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Woman<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

People come from all over the world to shop in Bristol, said Ms Kingscott, who runs an independent card shop in the city<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Across the country, German Christmas markets have proliferated, with wooden chalet style trading units, mulled wine, sausages, and twinkly lights.<\/p>\n

In the centre of Bristol, the market now attracts people from across England and further afield.<\/p>\n

Ms Kingscott said the city centre was “really busy” and people came from all over the world to buy her locally produced art and comical cards.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“We’ve had people from Poland, Germany, America \u2013 they love the Bristolian humour,” she added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Man<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

“Christmas was crazy” said Marcus Kent, who runs a board game shop in Bristol<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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“Christmas was just crazy in here,” said another trader, Marcus Kent.<\/p>\n

He runs Bristol’s Excelsior Comics, a specialist shop selling comics and board games, which he says has hit a sweet spot.<\/p>\n

“Board games really took off after Covid, and people suddenly being locked away from their friends,” he said.<\/p>\n

“People just really appreciate the social aspect of a physical game, something you have to share space with your friends with to enjoy.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Broadmead,Broadmead, Bristol<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Researchers found ‘footfall’ grew by 50% in towns with Christmas markets<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Between Christmas and New Year, town centres drew bigger crowds than out of town shopping malls, according to the research.<\/p>\n

High Street footfall was up 20% on Dec 27 2024, compared with a year earlier, but retail parks grew less, by just 14%.<\/p>\n

But one retail centre bucked the trend by hosting a number of festive events.<\/p>\n

In Street, Somerset, Clarks Village is a designer outlet centre built where once the famous shoe factory stood.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"ClarksClarks Village<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

A record-breaking event featuring skating Santas lured crowds to Clarks Village in Street, Somerset<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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To lure customers out in the cold weather, marketing bosses put on a challenge to get record numbers of Santa’s skating on ice<\/a>. <\/p>\n

They broke the record, and along with other eye-catching events, sales in the last quarter of the year grew by 6.1% on the previous Christmas.<\/p>\n

Retail analyst Susannah Streeter said the figures showed shoppers are “returning to pre-Pandemic habits”.<\/p>\n

More people want to try on clothes and shoes before they buy, she said.<\/p>\n

“But mostly, people want to have a good time. That’s why we’re seeing Christmas markets growing as a trend as people want to enjoy eating, drinking and socialising, as well as shopping,” she added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BBC Thousands visited Bath and Bristol’s Christmas Markets in the month before Christmas Christmas markets brought tourists and locals to city centres and High Streets as 2024 came to a close, according to latest figures. Retail analysts MRI found shoppers were “making the most of festive events”, driving a 50% rise in shoppers in market […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":209438,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/bbcx\/grey-placeholder.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[604],"tags":[411,7972,122,758,178,1602],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209437"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209437"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209437\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":209439,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209437\/revisions\/209439"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/209438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}