British singles are spending the most in Europe on their search for love, as the UK economy continues to grow.
The average British dater is spending £1,304 every year, new research from Match.com and The Centre of Economic Business Research (Cebr) has shown.
The research looks at how much singles are spending on the entire dating process – from restaurants and bars to gifts, clothing and cosmetics, to help “improve their dating success.”
They found that Britons are spending an average of £120 per date, much higher than their European counterparts.
British singles splashed out almost three times more per date than European daters – with Italians spending an average of £43, the French £31 and Germans just £39 per date.
Karl Gregory, Match.com’s UK managing director said: “It’s great to see that as a country we continue to invest in romance. It seems single Brits go a step further than other European nations, investing more in preparation and the date itself.
“The huge growth of mobile dating means singles have a wealth of potential partners at their fingertips so UK singles find it more important than ever to look their best and go the extra mile to impress their date.”
Cebr said this now means that dating contributes over £4bn to the UK economy.
And this spending on dating has increased by 20% between 2013 and 2014.
Match.com said the majority of this spending increase came from what they call “Date Bait” – which are products that singles buy “to impress their partner, such as new clothes, cosmetics and even pre-date gifts.”
According to the research, this accounted for 34% of the UK’s total dating spend, an increase of 42% last year.
And singles in the UK spend a huge £814m on clothes alone, more than any other country.
Dating brands might start to think about the potential of cross-promotion, and advertising opportunities, with companies selling such pre-date products.
Gifting is also apparently on the rise – with spending increasing from £120m in 2013 to £175m in 2014.
The Cebr’s analysis was based on the TNS Lovegeist 2014 and 2015 survey, which samples around 4,500 active daters in the 2014 survey, and just over 3,000 active daters in the 2015 survey throughout Germany, France UK, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands.