Working Paper 47: Spending time 2011 update

What we do with our spare time is an important aspect of our quality of life and of the offer that London makes to its residents, visitors and businesses. This Spending Time: 2011 update looks at how people spend their money on leisure activities and the consequences this has in terms of employment within London’s leisure sector.Average London household expenditure on leisure is 16.5 per cent higher than in the UK as a whole - £46.80 per week compared to £39.10. The only sub category where Londoner's spend less is for gambling payments. However when controlling for expenditure relative to income we show that London households do not spend proportionally more in total on leisure activities compared to households in the rest of the country. But they demonstrate a stronger preference for take aways and snack food, playing and watching sports, visiting cinemas, theatres and museums and going to restaurants and cafes.The recent recession has had a significant impact on spending on leisure activities with a reduction in customer spending on leisure by 1 per cent between 2007 and 2008 and a large reduction of 6.2 per cent from 2008 to 2009. The amount spent by customers in the leisure industry within the UK was worth £60.4 billion in 2009 with London’s estimated share of this being £15.1 billion.There has been high job growth in the leisure industry and it remains an important contributor to the London economy and an area that offers valuable employment opportunities for younger workers. In 2008 the leisure industry employed 306,000 people around 7.3 per cent of the London employee workforce.