Nationwide’s Spending Report analysed nearly 200 million card and direct debit transactions by its account holders and found a big leap in the number and amount of spend on travel.

Holiday spend by Nationwide members last month totalled £208,709,856, an increase of 379% year-on-year. Transactions reached 1.2 million, up 518%.

There is further good news for the sector, with purchases of airline travel totalling just over £49 million in January, up 408% and with transactions reaching 238,549, an increase of 434%. Sales of cruise holidays reached £6.9 million, an 899% increase, with transactions rising 426%.

Nationwide said: “The number of transactions in each of these three categories have risen by 400% or more compared to last year. These are also the only areas where there has been a significant increase in spend in January compared to December.”

Mark Nalder, Nationwide’s Head of Payments, said non-essential spend had risen 43% more in the first month of this year than 12 months previously. 

“Spending on holidays, airline travel and cruises played a big role in that, as consumers start 2022 in a positive frame of mind about the outlook for Covid-19 and about their travel plans for the coming year,” he said.

He warned the rising cost of living “continues to slowly bite into consumers’ pockets”, with spending including energy, water and tax bills up nearly 10% on the same month last year.

However, he signalled a favourable environment for the travel sector. 

“We expect spending to grow in February as the lifting of Plan B restrictions and the return to offices boosts spending in areas such as travel, eating and drinking and leisure and recreation.”

The survey revealed another key trend, that of transactions by mobile phone, which reached 27.9 million in January, up 179% year on year.