RETAILERS IN DUBLIN City Centre reported mixed results in the run up to Christmas this year, with footfall down in general, but hospitality reporting an increase in business.

Richard Guiney, spokesperson of Dublin Town – a representative body for businesses in Dublin City Centre – said that there were “mixed trading results” over the Christmas period.

“So footfall will be probably down compared to last year, by about 2-3 %,” he said.

“Larger retailers are down, boutique is holding its own, and hospitality slightly up.”

Guiney said the run up to Christmas was “probably a bit quieter than we would have liked, but it wasn’t a write-off by any stretch of the imagination”.

“It was a little bit behind where we want to be,” he said.

Dublin Town’s figures come at the beginning of the post-Christmas sales period, where retailers usually expect to see a bump in sales in the last days of December and early January.

Guiney said he had no early indications on how sales were in the immediate Christmas period.

The Dublin Town figures come after Retail Ireland reported a slight increase in the average spending by households on the run up to Christmas, RTÉ reports. 

This year’s Christmas shopping period was complicated by the closure of Holyhead Port, after it sustained damage during Storm Darragh.

Richard Guiney said that delays to online orders as a result of the closure showed the importance of physical shops. 

“The other thing that the city has is the variety,” he said.

You have large and small, and you can go for a meal or have a drink or take in a play or some entertainment,” he said.