ATLANTA – The combination of consumers soaking up the last weeks of summer before and during Labor Day weekend, and August back-to-school shopping helped power the strongest retail spending growth in 13 months, according to data reported last week by First Data Corporation, a global leader in payment technology and services solutions.

The First Data SpendTrend report examined the period for August 2 through September 2, 2014, compared to August 1 through September1, 2013. SpendTrend tracks same-store point-of-sale data by credit, signature debit, PIN debit, EBT, closed-loop prepaid cards and checks from nearly 4 million merchants locations serviced by First Data in the United States.

Leisure spending growth rebounded in August, and at 3.3% was the strongest in six months. As summer waned, vacationers contributed to the rise in year-over-year spending growth in the Hotel and Travel categories, a marked improvement over the previous month.

Overall retail spending growth was the strongest in over a year with retail dollar volume growth at 2.8% in August (vs. 2.6% in July), as back-to-school shopping propelled spending growth in several retail categories. Dollar volume growth at furniture and home furnishings and general merchandise stores was positive on a year-over-year basis and increased sequentially compared to July.

August’s overall average ticket growth remained positive at 1.2%, slipping slightly from July’s 1.5% on a year-over-year basis. Gasoline station average ticket growth fell to -2.3% compared to July’s decline of -0.2% as gasoline prices fell on both year-over-year and month-to-month bases. Meanwhile, the average ticket growth of 0.8% was an improvement over 0.4% last month as retailers were less aggressive with price discounting.