The economic juggernaut that is Taylor Swift’s ‘The Eras Tour’ is crossing the Atlantic Ocean.
If you’ve luckily secured tickets, you can use some of your holiday money to book your European hotel sooner or later – otherwise you risk a ‘cruel summer’ with no place to stay.
Hotels in Edinburgh are already 70% booked for June 7 and 8, the first two nights Swift performs at the city’s Murrayfield Stadium, according to forward-looking data from hotel industry research firm STR. Occupancy drops to 53% on June 9, the final night of Swift’s Edinburgh tour.
Occupancy already exceeds 50% on tour dates in other UK cities such as Cardiff on June 18 and Liverpool on June 13 and 14. Occupancy levels are approaching 50% in Dublin for all three nights of Swift’s tour stop at the Aviva Stadium in the Irish capital.
“If you look at the UK market, especially the regional UK market, it seems like they have the higher occupancy rates during the concert dates, and that’s definitely the Taylor Swift effect,” said Cristina Balekjian, a UK-based director hospitality analytics at This is reported by STR’s parent company CoStar Group.
Swift’s tour dates of August 1-3 (where booked occupancy ranges from 31% to 38%) in Warsaw, Poland, are the only dates before 2024 where the city has hotel bookings above the 20% occupancy threshold.
But don’t let the occupancy rate determine everything. Average daily rates are already sky-high in certain European cities. Swift will pass next summer.
Most Marriott and Hilton affiliated hotels in popular Paris neighborhoods for Swift’s opening night at the Paris La Defense Arena on May 9 start at $300 and climb higher. Rates at Hyatt-affiliated hotels start at $400 in central London and quickly increase on the dates Swift performs at Wembley Stadium.
“Our hotels have seen a huge increase in demand [average daily rates] during Taylor Swift’s ‘The Eras Tour’ with a city [hotel performance] nearly doubled during its concert dates,” Marriott CEO Anthony Capuano said earlier this year at a meeting of the company’s securities analysts. “Customers want to be at these events and enjoy these experiences in person.”
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The Taylor Swift model for hotels
It is still too far away to estimate whether interest rates will remain this high. However, it’s certainly not good news for the wallet that hotel companies are already trying to see if they can get travelers to spend that much on a hotel room when Swift is in town, along with large numbers of summer vacationers.
“The Taylor Swift model has definitely been taken into account. It is the new line item in revenue management,” said Dimitris Manikis – Wyndham president for Europe, Middle East, Eurasia and Africa –. “How can we actually maximize it? It’s always been sporting events, but now it’s not just sports anymore. It’s everything. Airlines are taking it into account now. Cities are taking it into account.”
The spike in demand comes as consumers increasingly prefer experiences over physical goods – something that has been a big help for travel companies looking to capitalize on the trend. It only makes nightly rates and airline tickets more expensive.
“These high-profile events have a big effect on hotel demand. Concerts have become a lot more popular and people are really trying to do those one-off things that really impact their lives,” Balekjian said.
Swift’s seismic impact on travel
Take the US as a bragging rights for the Swiftie economy (what Swift fans call themselves) and as a cautionary tale for how much to spend on a European hotel next summer.
A QuestionPro report over the summer estimated that “The Eras Tour” had a $5 billion direct impact on the collective economies of the 20 different city stops in the US – which includes everything from travel costs to dining and merchandise sales.
But the US Travel Association reported in September that the tour’s total economic impact was likely more than $10 billion; this is due to indirect spending by people who still visited the cities during a Swift concert date, but did not attend the concert itself. Just look at all the videos of thousands of fans showing up to listen from a stadium parking lot, while the actual concert took place in a sold-out crowd.
A single Swiftie averaged $1,300 in direct expenses per concert date. That’s comparable to the per-person spending level seen for a Super Bowl, according to US Travel. Multiply that by 53 different concert dates, and you suddenly understand why ‘The Eras Tour’ has boosted the economy so much this summer.
When Swift made her two-night stop in Pittsburgh, hotels were averaging a 95% occupancy rate, the highest since before the pandemic and the second-highest citywide occupancy rate in history, US Travel reported. Hotels in Pittsburgh also had an average nightly rate of $309, a 106% increase over the typical rate for a hotel in the city.
Average rates rose 51% in Nashville when Swift performed in early May. Boston hotel rates rose 28% when Swift performed out of town at Gillette Stadium.
If the US is a canary in the coal mine when it comes to what travelers heading to Europe next summer can expect, it’s that fares will be higher than you might expect – even during the region’s peak season.
Lock in rates now or consider using your award nights and points to save money. You can use the savings at the merchandise stand.
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