After our previous article, we look at Ramadan spending. It is known that Ramadan is one of the festivities in Indonesia where people tend to spend more, mostly in preparation for the upcoming Eid al-Fitr/Idulfitri. With the pandemic still happening, how did it change our respondent’s Ramadan spending behavior?
Looking back even further to 2016, 69% respondents claimed that their expenses increased during Ramadan. Before the pandemic in general, the top increased spending for Ramadan is for food and beverages, at 71% respondents claiming that their spending on these increased during the holy month. Reasons for this can be that Ramadan is usually an occasion to also congregate and spend time with family and friends while breaking fast/bukber, a behavior we’ll discuss more in our next article. These are often done in restaurants and diners out-of-home, or at least via takeout, which contributes to the increased spending. Looking at Ramadan during the pandemic in 2020, the percentage of respondents who claimed their food and beverage spending increased during Ramadan is the same, which means that perhaps the takeout and delivery options are likely increased due to the enforced social distancing measures.
Another interesting thing is if we look at the amount of respondents whose spending increased in Ramadan 2020: only 33% claimed so, which is a huge drop from the 2016 data. This is especially interesting if we also look at respondent’s plan for Ramadan 2021, where 46% are planning to have increased spending during Ramadan, quite a significant increase compared to 2021 even though the pandemic is still in effect. There might be general fatigue at play here, as Indonesians have largely skipped last year’s festivities during Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr 2020, and perhaps not keen to repeat that in 2021.
So how does the current pandemic also affected Indonesian’s activities during Ramadan? In our next article, we’ll talk about it more, so please subscribe to our newsletter to keep yourself updated.
(This study is done in partnership with RB Consulting)
