Growth of the Love Economy – Valentine’s Day Spend Up 49% in Jordan in Three Years
February 17, 2020 | Jordan- Valentine’s Day, a key occasion for celebration in Jordan as spending increases across the board
- Spend on experiences such as hotels and vacations outpaces traditional gifts like flowers and jewellery
- Online shopping witnesses impressive growth around Valentine’s Day
The celebration of Love is booming across Jordan as Valentine’s Day spend increases by 49 per cent in just three years, according to Mastercard’s annual Love Index, which analyses spending habits and trends around Valentine’s Day by analysing credit, debit and prepaid card transactions across the globe.
Romantics across Jordan are spending more than ever before, with overall transactions in the lead up to Valentine’s Day (11-14 Feb) up by 75 per cent over the past three years. While spend on experiences such as hotels make up the majority (58 per cent) of spend around Valentine’s Day, details such as flowers, jewellery and cards are still important ways for Jordanians to express their love.
Gifting experiences becomes an all time favourite across the country with the number of transactions on hotels rising by 118 per cent from 2017 to 2019 and $310,008 spent on booking flights and trips away last year, up 58 per cent from 2017. The data also reveals traditional Valentine’s Day cards remain popular rising by 231 per cent in 2019. Spend on jewellery has also increased by 49 per cent and flowers by 25 per cent last year.
Food continues to be a safe way to peoples hearts, with spend in restaurants continuing to increase for Valentine’s Day year-on-year. Since 2017 there has been a 56 per cent increase in the amount of Valentine’s Day transactions in restaurants, with overall spend decreasing by 24 per cent to $448,961 in 2019.
The rise of online shopping also continues, with a 94 per cent spike in online transactions in the Valentine’s Day period over the past three years. Of those still shopping offline, the share of contactless transactions has seen a massive increase of 13,600 per cent since 2017, with increasing year-on-year growth (0.03% of transactions in 2017 were contactless vs. 2.6% in 2019).
“Through the rise of online transactions it is clear that investing time and money into building memories with loved ones continues to grow in Jordan. Favouring experiences over traditional gifts remains a priority and it’s clear that today’s generation place a great emphasis on making Valentine’s Day an opportunity to create a shared experience,” said Ramzy Al Amary, Cluster Manager for Levant, Mastercard.
“It is easier to travel and book trips away now than ever before, which is reflected in the huge increases in flights and hotels booked online in the lead up to Valentine’s Day over the past three years. What’s also interesting is that spending on more traditional gifts remains important to Jordanians. The Mastercard Love Index is a unique look at how buying behaviour is evolving over time, and as we make our way in a new decade we expect the trend to favour experiences over material purchases to continue.”
The data revealed a positive trend of a more organized Valentine’s Day planner, with the majority of transactions taking place earlier than ever before and the number of last minute shoppers falling. 2019 saw the majority of Valentine’s Day transactions take place on 11th Feb, compared to 2018 where they took place on 12th Feb and in 2017 where they took place on 13th Feb, the day before Valentine’s Day.
