Javanese Residents Most Frugal in Spending During School Holidays

The school holiday season typically boosts public spending, but this year’s momentum appears weaker than in previous years. According to the Mandiri Spending Index (MSI) as of 28 June 2026, expenditure continued to rise, but the increase was very limited. In the fourth week of June, or the third week of the school holidays, the MSI stood at 123.4, a weekly increase of only 0.05%, down from 0.36% growth the previous week. Compared to the pre-holiday period, spending in the third week of the 2026 school holidays rose just 0.4%, lower than the 0.8% recorded in the same period in 2025 and significantly below the 1.1% seen in 2024. The data indicates that consumption has not halted, but the impetus is not as strong as in prior periods. During the 2025 school holidays, spending tended to rise week after week, whereas this year the increase has been flatter, with growth slowing again in the third week after a brief uptick in the second week. Signals of subdued spending are also evident in Bank Indonesia’s Retail Sales Survey, which estimates that retail sales in June 2026 fell 0.8% month-on-month, although this was an improvement from the 1.5% decline in May 2026. On an annual basis, public spending still grew 6.0%, with average MSI growth in the second quarter of 2026 recorded at 6.1%, slightly higher than the 5.9% in the second quarter of 2025. However, this pace is slower than the 6.4% recorded in the first quarter of 2026, suggesting that while spending is holding up, its strength has eased since the start of the year. Price pressures also provide important context, with Statistics Indonesia recording June 2026 inflation at 0.44% month-on-month and 3.34% year-on-year, driven in part by the transportation group following adjustments to non-subsidised fuel prices. As the cost of goods and services rises, the scope for holiday-related spending becomes more constrained. From a regional perspective, all areas still recorded positive spending growth, but the increases were uneven. Java, which remains Indonesia’s largest economic centre, contributing 57.24% to the national economy in the first quarter of 2026, saw the smallest spending increase during the third week of the school holidays. The MSI recorded a weekly rise of just 0.02% in Java, lower than Sumatra at 0.04%, Bali-Nusa Tenggara at 0.08%, Kalimantan at 0.09%, Sulawesi at 0.17%, and Maluku and Papua at 0.21%. Compared to the pre-holiday period, spending in Java rose only 0.2%, the lowest among all regions, while Maluku and Papua recorded a 1.1% increase, Kalimantan and Sulawesi 1.0%, Sumatra 0.7%, and Bali-Nusa Tenggara 0.3%. Annual spending growth in Java was also the lowest at 5.3% year-on-year, while Sulawesi recorded the highest growth at 9.9%, followed by Kalimantan at 9.2%, Bali-Nusa Tenggara at 7.8%, Maluku and Papua at 7.1%, and Sumatra at 6.1%.