Alcohol consumption and closed borders - how COVID-19 restrictions have impacted alcohol sales and consumption in Europe

Table 3 Changes in cross-border inflow, consumption abroad, domestic sales (by Swedish residents) and estimated substitution ratios and changes in revenues 2020/2019. (Substitution ratios (D) below a 100% indicate that cross-border sales are only partly replaced by domestic purchases and vice versa)

Changes 2019–2020 (in million litres 100% alc.) and estimated substitution rates	Beer	Spirits	Wine	Total
(A) Change in cross-border inflow^a and tourist consumption abroad^b	−4.0	−3.8	−3.2	−11.0
(B) Change in domestic sales to Swedish residents^c	+ 2.5	+ 1.8	+ 3.7	+ 8.4
(C) Predicted change in domestic sales based on pooled change in DE and PL^d	−1.0	+ 0.03	0.0	−1.4
(D) Substitution ratios^e	85.8%	45.5%	117.6%	89.0%
(E) Actual revenues (change in millions SEK and in %)	+ 216 (+ 5.1%)	+ 556 (+ 12.2%)	+ 362 (+ 6.1%)	1134 (+ 7.6%)
(F) Estimated revenues (change in millions SEK and in %) based on predicted changes in (C)^d	+ 430 (+ 10.6%)	+ 538 (+ 11.8%)	+ 422 (+ 6.1%)	+ 1390 (8.8%)

^aInflow: data from the Monitor study [27]
^bUsing the middle-range alternative estimated by the Monitor project assuming a 25% higher daily consumption abroad than at home [27]. Change 2019–2020: assuming the same percentage decrease in consumption abroad as for total number of trips nights abroad by Swedes (− 84%, [31])
^cRAC minus estimates of Norwegians’ cross-border purchases in SE [30] and other non-Swedish residents’ purchases volumes in Sweden. The latter assumed to be half the volumes of the Swedish consumption volumes abroad, based on the number of tourist days/nights by Swedish tourists abroad and by foreign tourists in Sweden showing a ratio of approx. 2:1. ( [27] 2015 [32]; 2021). Reasonable deviations from this assumption does not more than marginally impact the main results shown in the table
^dDE and PL 2019–2020: −5% for beer, + 0.4% for spirits, − 1% for wine
^eObtained by dividing the difference between observed and predicted sales (B-C) with the change in inflow (A)

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