Consumption in Sweden has continued to rise during the summer.
This is shown by statistics produced by Swedbank Makro based on card transactions within Swedbank Pay, which handles over half of all card transactions in Sweden.
During the period From August 1 to 7, total consumption increased by 7 percent compared to a year ago and by 5 percent compared to the corresponding period two years ago.
"Recently, we have seen a rapid recovery in consumption. The hotel and restaurant sector has had the fastest improvement and turnover in July was significantly higher than in the last two summers," says Andreas Wallström, Head of Forecasting at Swedbank.
Turnover in the service sector was nearly 20 percent higher than the corresponding period last year. In the hotel and restaurant sector, turnover last week was 29 percent higher than the corresponding week in 2020 and 24 percent higher than in 2019.
The travel sector has also seen an improvement during the summer, but there is a big difference between different modes of travel.
Public transport has recovered significantly, while airlines, travel agencies and taxi companies continue to have turnover that is well below normal levels. For airlines and travel agencies, turnover during the summer has been 75-80 percent lower than during the summer of 2019.
”"This autumn we expect continued increasing consumption in Sweden, but the delta variant and other mutations of the coronavirus are expected to continue to hold back the development of certain consumption, such as travel," says Andreas Wallström, head of forecasting at Swedbank.
