Merry Christmas, everyone.
This year I decided to write a post for the masses, rather than for the 1% (if you are in the 1% see: Private Jet Buyers Guide).
So what does everyone want for Christmas? A Christmas tree of course.
Nothing beat that real tree smell. Or the time spent cleaning the shed needles. Or the hours spent figuring out how to dispose of it. Bah. Humbug.
But real trees aren’t cheap when compared to fake ones. My parents have owned there’s for over 35 years! At £50 new, that works out to about £1.43 per year.
Assuming you could go shopping anywhere in the world for a Christmas Tree; where would you get the best deal?
Methodology
Bloom and Wild researched Christmas Tree prices in 11 cities around the world.
They researched prices for an “average” real six foot (1.83 metre) tree in these cities.
Results
The most expensive city to buy a Christmas Tree
| City | Ave. Christmas tree cost (6ft / 1.83 mtr) (EUR) | Cost per metre (EUR) | Cost per year (10 yr) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prague | €11.00 | €6.01 | €1.10 |
| Salzburg | €37.62 | €20.57 | €3.76 |
| Copenhagen | €42.40 | €23.18 | €4.24 |
| Berlin | €49.64 | €27.14 | €4.96 |
| Aspen | €56.35 | €30.81 | €5.64 |
| Quebec city | €64.11 | €35.06 | €6.41 |
| Strasbourg | €64.58 | €35.31 | €6.46 |
| London | €67.85 | €37.10 | €6.79 |
| Belgium | €74.52 | €40.75 | €7.45 |
| New York | €137.89 | €75.40 | €13.79 |
| Dublin | €145.92 | €79.79 | €14.59 |
Prague is by-far-and-away the cheapest city for a tree. A 1.83 metre tree costs on average about €11, or €6.01 per metre.
Compare that to Dublin, where the same sized tree will cost you €146 or almost €80 per metre! You could buy 13 trees in Prague for the same price.
Assuming you could ship the tree from Prague to Dublin for less than €135 — a figure that sounds plausible — the tree would still be cheaper than buying locally.
The British Christmas Tree Growers state that:
A typical 6 to 7 feet high Christmas tree is between 10 and 12 years old
Assuming a 6 foot (1.83m) tree takes 10 years to grow, that’s is the equivalent of €1.10 per year at Prague prices. Even €14.59 a year at Dublin prices sounds fair to me.
Christmas tree sales (London)
The British Christmas Tree Growers association estimated 7 million trees are bought in the UK each year.
London has around 13% of the UK population, which as a rough estimate (13% of 7 million) could see 910,000 trees sold in London each Christmas (that’s 1,665,300 metres total @ 1.83 metres per tree).
Total value of Christmas tree sales in London: €61,782,630.
Update December 5th: the 80 foot / 24.39 metre tree erected in Trafalgar Square (although donated) would cost €1654.45 at London tree prices. Some would argue it’s not worth that much…
If UK Political Parties Sold Christmas Trees…
| Party | Number trees planted /yr | Christmas Tree Value @ €67.85 |
|---|---|---|
| Conservatives | 30,000,000 | €2,035,500,000 |
| Lib Dems | 60,000,000 | €4,071,000,000 |
| SNP | 60,000,000 | €4,071,000,000 |
| Greens | 70,000,000 | €4,749,500,000 |
| Labour | 100,000,000 | €6,785,000,000 |
If you’re in the UK, you’ve probably seen the (important) tree planting policies by each party in advance of the upcoming General Election.
Let’s imagine for a moment each of the trees was a 1.83 metre Christmas Tree (Spruce, Pine, etc.) sold at London prices (€67.85)… and that millions more people needed trees (ignoring almost all proposed immigration policies).
Labour could generate tree sales of €6.79 billion every year (or £5.8 billion [December 1st 2019] for the “leavers”).
Improvements
The Bloom and Wild report does not cover any real detail as to how the figures were collected, nor does it cover a large number of cities. Increasing transparency and amount of data collected would make for a more interesting analysis.
I’d also like to compare the value of real trees to their artificial alternatives.
tl;dr
Christmas trees purchased in Dublin are 13 times more expensive (€146) than those in Prague (€11).