What do you know about the Brits? Aside from the Queen, they are also known to be romantic. In fact, they're so amorous they can spend a lot of money for it.
Indeed, if there's one thing you can never accuse a Brit, it's being a cheapskate. UK singles, for example, is the biggest romantic spender in all of Europe.
A report by the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) in partnership with Match.com, one of UK's biggest dating websites, showed that Brits spent a whopping £5 billion ($7 billion) for romance in 2015, an increase of £1 billion ($1.4 billion) in 2014. There's also around 33 percent increase of active daters than in the previous year.
This supplemented the information from Match.com that said a typical date in London would cost a couple around £127 ($179.55).
Where were they spending this money on?
Obviously, a huge chunk of the money went to food and entertainment at £69.26 ($97.92) while transport's spending was £10.26 ($14.51). For those who were trying to be more low-key, at least £5.13 ($7.25) was spent on eating in.
UK singles were also spending on what CEBR calls the date baits or products that are meant to impress a potential partner. The biggest expense in this category was clothing at £20.52 ($29) followed by hairdressing at £7.70 ($10.89) and cosmetics at £5.13 ($7.25). More singles in the UK were also becoming generous in gifting, spending £6.41 ($9). Although not a date bait, partners also set aside a budget for contraceptives, which cost £2.57 ($3.63).
These figures were a far cry from what other Europeans are spending for romantic nights. Germany, for example, was tight fisted, spending an average of only £40 ($56.55). Netherlands was cheap as well but fared better than Germany at £9 ($12.72) more.
Before you judge singles in the UK as money wasters, though, the research stressed that the increase in spending may be attributed to the continuous growth of the British economy, which gives people more buying and dating power.
In fact, "the figures show the growing importance of dating to the economy," said Karl Gregory, the website's managing director in Northern Europe. "Their ability to spend almost twice the amount as other Europeans can also be a great thing for singles and for UK plc," he further added.
Photo: Mo Riza | Flickr
