While nationwide spending was down year-on-year over the week to Easter Monday, the holiday period performed better compared to its 2018 counterpart, according to nationwide spending data from Paymark.

The seven days to Monday, April 22, 2019, saw spending increase by 4.6 per cent compared to the Easter week in 2018, which ran to April 2. This is down slightly from the 4.9 per cent year-on-year spending increase in 2018.

Gisborne saw the strongest growth at 14.6 per cent, followed by Marlborough at 13.3 per cent, when comparing Easter periods.

Spending was also up across clothing and footwear stores (13.8 per cent), and liquor retailers (9.9 per cent).

Compared to the exact same week in 2018, rather than last year’s East period, spending in the Canterbury region was down 7 per cent, with Kiwis spending a total of $125.1 million in the region over the week.

Wellington brought in $106.2 million, a 5.9 per cent drop, while Auckland brought in $454.1 million – a 6 per cent drop compared to the same period in 2018.

Auckland made up about a third of the spending in the country, with Paymark recording $1.19 billion spent over the week (0.8 per cent down on 2018), though the region was far outstripped in terms of overall growth.

The Bay of Plenty saw spending grow to $92.9 million – a 14.5 per cent increase year over year. Gisborne enjoyed 19.6 per cent spending growth to $11.7 million, while Otago brought in $76.6 million, or an increase of 7.1 per cent.

According to Paymark, grocery, fuel and hospitality providers, drove almost all of the spending increase.

“This year these merchants recorded $43 million more spending (up 15.7 per cent) outside of the three largest Paymark regions,” Paymark said.