Our company has been tracking the long-term trend in location-based entertainment spending that has shown a decline started around the turn of the century. We now have new, more current data thru June 2014 and it appears that trend is continuing.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistic’s Consumer Expenditure Survey is an incredible resource for analyzing consumer spending and participation trends. It has been published on a calendar year basis. However, starting in 2012, BLS also started publishing a midyear update. They have just released the midyear update for July 2013 thru June 2014. So we now have three consecutive midyears of reports to look for trends.
The midyear reports don’t break spending into the finer segments that the annual data allows. They only report entertainment in a very broad category of fees and admissions that includes all recreation expenses; social, recreation and health club memberships; fees for participant sports; admissions to cinemas, theaters, amusement parks, museums, sporting events and other similar venues; and recreational lessons. Nevertheless, the broad category is still a good indication of out-of-home entertainment and recreation spending.
Since 2000, we have seen an overall decline in location-based entertainment, sports, recreation and club spending. Inflation-adjusted, it is down by 21% from 2000 spending and down by nearly one-quarter (23%) from its high point right before the start of the Great Recession.
The new midyear report confirms the downward spending trend is continuing. Average inflation-adjusted household spending for this broad category of entertainment declined by 9% between the July-June midyear ending in 2012 and the most current one ending June 2014.
About Randy White
Randy White is CEO and co-founder of the White Hutchinson Leisure & Learning Group. The 31-year-old company, with offices in Kansas City, Missouri, has worked for over 600 clients in 37 countries throughout the world. Projects the company has designed and produced have won seventeen 1st place awards. Randy is considered to be one of the world's foremost authorities on feasibility, brand development, design and production of leisure experience destinations including entertainment, eatertainment, edutainment, agritainment/agritourism, play and leisure facilities.
Randy was featured on the Food Network's Unwrapped television show as an eatertainment expert, quoted as an entertainment/edutainment center expert in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, New York Times and Time magazine and received recognition for family-friendly designs by Pizza Today magazine. One of the company's projects was featured as an example of an edutainment project in the book The Experience Economy. Numerous national newspapers have interviewed him as an expert on shopping center and mall entertainment and retail-tainment.
Randy is a graduate of New York University. Prior to repositioning the company in 1989 to work exclusively in the leisure and learning industry, White Hutchinson was active in the retail/commercial real estate industry as a real estate consultancy specializing in workouts/turnarounds of commercial projects. In the late 1960s to early 1980s, Randy managed a diversified real estate development company that developed, owned and managed over 2.0 million square feet of shopping centers and mixed-use projects and 2,000 acres of residential subdivisions. Randy has held the designations of CSM (Certified Shopping Center Manager) and Certified Retail Property Executive (CRX) from the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC).
He has authored over 150 articles that have been published in over 40 leading entertainment/leisure and early childhood education industry magazines and journals and has been a featured speaker and keynoter at over 40 different conventions and trade groups.
Randy is the editor of his company's Leisure eNewsletter, has a blog and posts on Twitter and Linkedin.
