Taylor Swift’s Tour Is Dramatically Boosting the Economies of the Cities It Stops in
Taylor Swift is hitting 20 different U.S. cities on her Eras Tour. And it seems likely that not a single one of them wants to shake off the effect she’s having on their economy.
Locals and tourists are spending big to see Swift in concert, bringing a much needed monetary boost to cities across the country, The Wall Street Journal reported over the weekend. These fans are booking out hotels, hunkering down at restaurants, and bringing numbers back to pre-pandemic levels.
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“There’s been pent-up demand to go have fun, to go out and be social,” Mara Klaunig, a senior analyst at the economic research firm Camoin Associates, told the WSJ. “People are willing to travel far and wide to see her.”
Las Vegas’s tourism board said Swift’s concerts brought in almost as many visitors as traveled to Sin City before the pandemic. Chicago and Minneapolis had record-breaking numbers of occupied hotel rooms during Eras Tour weekends. And the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia said that May was the City of Brotherly Love’s best month for hotel revenue since the start of the pandemic, in large part thanks to Swift’s stopover in the city.
In terms of hard numbers, Cincinnati saw spending related to the Eras Tour reach about $48 million, according to the city’s tourism office. “She is a powerful force,” Julie Calvert, the CEO of Visit Cincy, told The Wall Street Journal. “She’s got that magic.”
While some of the economic bump has been a natural byproduct of people traveling to see Swift, some businesses are going all-out trying to attract Swifties. Nashville’s Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum put together an exhibit of Swift clothing in just five months, leading the museum to have its best month in 65 years. And Glam Doll Donuts in Minneapolis created a $63 box of Swift-themed treats, selling 150 boxes and stopping only because it couldn’t keep up with demand.
Swift’s U.S. tour will come to an end in just a couple of weeks, but it seems like her economic power will extend to upcoming international stops: Air New Zealand said it’s experienced a “Swift surge” in people booking flights to Australia for her February shows. In fact, the airline added an extra 14 flights to meet demand. (Some of them will sport the code NZ1989, in honor of Swift’s fifth album.)
We bet these cities are wishing that the Eras Tour would go on forevermore.
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