Welcome to the age of the hermit consumer
financial planning. Then, in 2020, spending on services, from hotel stays to hair cuts, collapsed owing to lockdowns. With people spending more time at home, demand for goods jumped, with a rush for computer equipment and exercise bikes.
Three years on the share of spending devoted to services remains below its pre-covid level (see chart 1). Relative to its pre-covid trend, the decline is even sharper. Rich-world consumers are spending on the order of $600bn a year less on services than you might have expected in 2019.
In particular, people are less interested in spending on leisure activities that generally take place outside the home, including hospitality and recreation. The money saved is being redirected to goods, ranging from durables such as chairs and fridges, to things like clothes, food and wine. In countries that spent less time in lockdown, hermit habits have not become ingrained.
Spending on services in New Zealand and South Korea, for instance, is in line with its pre-covid trend. Elsewhere, though, hermit behaviour now looks pathological. In the Czech Republic, which was whacked by covid, the services share is about three percentage points below trend.
America is not far off. Japan has witnessed a 50% decline in restaurant bookings for client entertainment and other business purposes. Pity the drunk salaryman staggering around Tokyo’s entertainment districts: he is now an endangered species.
At first glance, the figures are hard to reconcile with the anecdotes. Isn’t it harder than ever to get a reservation at a good restaurant? And aren’t hotels full of travellers, causing prices to soar? Yet the true source of the crowding is not sky-high demand, but constrained supply. These days fewer people want to
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