Nighttime visitor spending is concentrated in food, nightlife, travel, and entertainment, but the pattern varies by geography and audience. UK card data, London visitor analysis, and inbound Visa spending show the scale and composition of activity from the evening into the early morning.
Contents
- UK nighttime card spending
- London nighttime visitors
- Where London activity is concentrated
- London high-street spending changes
- Inbound visitor restaurants and nightlife
- Inbound entertainment and live music
- The 2024 inbound spending context
UK nighttime card spending
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) examined in-person Revolut card spending during 7–14 November 2022. Its nighttime measure covered 6pm to 6am, a 12-hour interval. The snapshot is useful for understanding the mix of nighttime purchases, but it is not representative of every UK consumer: Revolut customers skew younger and more metropolitan.
Restaurants were the largest category, accounting for 42% of UK in-person card spending between 6pm and 6am. Groceries represented 22%, while shopping represented 12%. Transport accounted for 9% and travel for 8%. Entertainment represented 2%, and other merchant groups made up the remaining 5%.
| Merchant group | Share of UK nighttime in-person card spending |
|---|---|
| Restaurants | 42% |
| Groceries | 22% |
| Shopping | 12% |
| Transport | 9% |
| Travel | 8% |
| Other merchant groups | 5% |
| Entertainment | 2% |
Across the full in-person card snapshot, nighttime spending represented 33% of total spending. The category shares describe the composition of nighttime spending, not the share of all spending going to each category. The ONS also reported that more than 50% of restaurant-group spending occurred at night, while nighttime spending exceeded 33% of category spending in the restaurant, travel, and entertainment groups.
Source: The night-time economy, UK: 2022, covering 7–14 November 2022.
London nighttime visitors
The Greater London Authority’s London at Night analysis used a 2018–2023 evidence base and published an update in 2024. Its London-specific measures define nighttime as 6pm to 6am unless a narrower time window is stated. Visitor footfall is a proxy for activity, and modeled Mastercard spending is based on network data.
About 25% of London spending occurred at night in the GLA analysis. The visitor volumes show how activity changes during the evening. London typically had 3 to 4 million visitors out between 6pm and 9pm during the 2023 analysis. On a typical weekend night, more than 2 million visitors were out between 9pm and midnight, and around 1 million were out between midnight and 3am.
These figures describe people out in London during specified periods, rather than unique tourists or a direct count of spending visitors. They still indicate a large potential audience for restaurants, bars, clubs, concerts, and other nighttime activities.
The GLA’s published visitor measure also makes the geography of nighttime demand visible. Westminster typically had nearly 400,000 visitors from 6pm to midnight, averaged across Thursday-to-Saturday nights. The West End alone had more than 140,000 visitors in the same broad period on a typical Thursday-to-Saturday night.
At the other end of the cited comparison, Kingston-upon-Thames, Barking and Dagenham, Sutton, and Bexley each had fewer than 40,000 visitors from 6pm to midnight. These are London-area comparisons from the 2023 analysis, not estimates for the whole UK.
Source: London at Night: An Evidence Base for a 24 Hour City, with analysis from 2018–2023 and the relevant visitor figures from 2023.
Where London activity is concentrated
The difference between central and outer locations is especially clear in the London visitor counts. Westminster’s nearly 400,000 visitors from 6pm to midnight on the cited Thursday-to-Saturday average were roughly the scale of ten or more areas that each recorded fewer than 40,000 visitors in the comparison. This is a comparison of reported thresholds, not a calculated exact ratio.
The West End’s more than 140,000 visitors from 6pm to midnight provide a narrower example of how a single central destination can draw nighttime activity. The broader London evening count of 3 to 4 million visitors from 6pm to 9pm includes all locations in the analysis, while the later counts fall to more than 2 million from 9pm to midnight and around 1 million from midnight to 3am.
For live music and nightlife businesses, the figures suggest that time and place matter together. A citywide nighttime percentage does not describe the same opportunity in every district, and a central-district visitor count does not mean every visitor makes a purchase. The measures should therefore be read as indicators of audience scale and concentration, rather than as average spend per person.
London high-street spending changes
The State of London, published in June 2025, compared London high streets and town centres in 2024 with 2023. More than 90% of London high streets and town centres had higher visitor footfall in 2024 than in 2023. Footfall growth was broad, but the spending results were more mixed.
In Inner London, 31% of high streets and town centres had higher nighttime retail spend in 2024 than in 2023. The corresponding share in Outer London was 36%. Daytime retail spend was higher in 43% of Inner London areas and 32% of Outer London areas.
| London retail measure | Inner London | Outer London |
|---|---|---|
| Areas with higher nighttime retail spend in 2024 | 31% | 36% |
| Areas with higher daytime retail spend in 2024 | 43% | 32% |
| Areas with more nighttime purchases in 2024 | 60% | 72% |
| Areas with more daytime purchases in 2024 | 70% | 70% |
Purchase counts were stronger than the retail-spend comparison in both parts of London. Sixty percent of Inner London retail areas had more nighttime purchases in 2024 than in 2023, compared with 72% of Outer London retail areas. For daytime purchases, the figure was 70% in both Inner and Outer London.
These measures distinguish the number of purchases from the value of retail spend. More purchases do not necessarily mean higher total spending, and the source does not provide an average transaction value in the supplied figures.
Source: The State of London - June 2025, comparing 2023 and 2024.
Inbound visitor restaurants and nightlife
VisitBritain’s summary of Visa data covers anonymized, in-person Visa card spending by inbound visitors. It excludes online spending, and the reported values are nominal unless explicitly identified as real. The 2023 Restaurants & Nightlife category included restaurants, bars, taverns, lounges, discos, fast food, and caterers.
Restaurants and nightlife represented 19% of inbound visitor card spend in 2021, 23% in 2022, and 24% in 2023. Restaurants alone rose from 14.1% of total inbound visitor card spend in 2021 to 16.5% in 2022 and 17.4% in 2023. Restaurant spend grew 35% year over year in nominal terms in 2023.
Bars, taverns, lounges, and discos accounted for 3.0% of total inbound visitor card spend in 2021, 3.7% in 2022, and 3.8% in 2023. This category’s nominal spend grew 31% year over year in 2023.
Fast-food restaurants represented 2.7% of total inbound visitor card spend in 2023, with nominal spend up 49% year over year. Caterers represented 0.5% in 2023, also with 49% nominal year-over-year growth. These percentages are shares of total inbound visitor card spend, not shares of restaurant-and-nightlife spending.
Source: Inbound card spending insights from Visa: 2023 insight summary, covering 2021–2023.
Inbound entertainment and live music
Entertainment categories were smaller shares of total inbound visitor card spending in 2023, but several recorded substantial nominal year-over-year growth. Tourist attractions and exhibits represented 0.9% of total inbound visitor card spend and grew 49% from 2022 to 2023.
Theatrical producers represented 0.6% and grew 27%. Member clubs, sport, recreation, and golf represented 0.4%, with 7% year-over-year growth. Bands, orchestras, and entertainment represented 0.1%, while their nominal spend grew 45% year over year.
Motion-picture theatres also represented 0.1% of total inbound visitor card spend in 2023, with nominal spend up 25% year over year. The bands, orchestras, and entertainment category is the supplied measure most directly connected to live music, but it is not a complete measure of all concert or venue spending.
The small percentages should be interpreted alongside the growth rates and the measurement basis. A category can have a low share of total card spending and still show a high year-over-year change. The supplied figures do not give absolute pounds spent, visitor counts for each category, or average spend per visitor.
Source: Inbound card spending insights from Visa: 2023 insight summary, covering 2023 shares and 2022–2023 nominal growth.
The 2024 inbound spending context
VisitBritain’s inbound card spending report for January–December 2024 provides a more recent context for visitor spending in Britain. Total inbound visitor card spend grew 6% in 2024 compared with 2023, or 4% in real terms. Restaurants and dining accounted for 26% of inbound visitor card spend in 2024, while entertainment accounted for 3%.
Inbound visitor restaurant and dining spend grew 2% year over year in 2024. Because the report separately identifies restaurants and dining and entertainment, these figures should not be merged with the earlier Restaurants & Nightlife grouping without preserving the different category definitions.
The 2024 results place nightlife-related spending within a broader visitor economy: dining remained a much larger card-spend category than entertainment, while total inbound spending increased in both nominal and real terms. The 4% real increase accounts for price effects as reported by VisitBritain; the 6% figure is the nominal change.
Source: Inbound card spending to Britain: Card spending trends Jan-Dec 2024, covering 2024 versus 2023.