Tourists' luxury spending up in December for first time since February - study

PARIS (Reuters) - Global spending on luxury goods by tourists was up in December for the first time since February, lifted by strong business in Britain and France, a study by tax-refund services firm Global Blue showed.

Tourism spending on luxury goods was up 3 percent year on year in December overall, with a 26 percent increase in Britain and 21 percent in France, which had suffered from a sharp downturn after deadly Islamist attacks in Paris and Nice.

The data does not include tourism spending in the United States, Hong Kong and Dubai.

(Reporting by Pascale Denis; Writing by Ingrid Melander; Editing by Michel Rose and David Goodman)