The American pop icon filled an empty space the world didn’t suspect with his soulful music. And while her songs are impactful, Swift is also an economic tour de force.
His Eras tour, which began last year in the wake of a global pandemic, broke records as most profitable tour in history. Every city she performed in saw an increase in business, whether it was retail, restaurants or hotel rooms.
Swift’s influence is so profound that the Eras Tour generated $5 billion in U.S. consumer spending in just six months. Nomura Estimates suggest.
The singer is now using her economic influence in Europe for this cruel summer – and experts believe her profits could exceed the American leg of her tour.
What makes Europe different for Swift?
Swift has performed more than 50 shows, including in the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Poland.
Although the timing and macroeconomic environments differ in each country compared to the United States, Europe as a whole has some general advantages.
“(Europe has) stronger public transportation networks than the United States, so it’s easier to get to the site from a larger region. So we think the impact will probably be more widespread than just that two-and-a-half mile radius,” said Natalia Lechmanova, chief economist for Europe at the Mastercard Economics Institute. Fortune.
This means that people don’t necessarily need to be near concert venues before attending, because they can rely on an efficient transportation system to get them where they need to go. It also helps that Swift’s tour dates are peppered over the summer, when people are already looking to travel.
If that wasn’t enough, Swift is also configured to perform new songs of a double album that she released last month in her upcoming concerts. This bodes well for the pop star’s American fans, many of whom have flocked to Paris in greater numbers than for the Olympic Games to see Swift perform. Others travel to different parts of Europe to catch a glimpse of their idol.
Caroline Babinski, a 26-year-old based in New York, is flying to Zurich to attend one of Swift’s concerts in July. She attended two concerts of the Eras tour in the United States, but that did not stop her from doing another one, but this time it will be in Europe.
“It was much easier to book in Zurich. When I was trying to go to the shows in the States, I never got a pre-sale,” Babinski said. Fortuneadding that the tickets were also much cheaper than the show she went to in Philadelphia.
Babinski said she spent about $1,500 on the trip to Zurich, where she would stay and attend Swift’s concert with her sister.
“I think it’s worth it,” she said. “The production on the show that she’s doing now is simply unmatched.”
Kevin Mazur—TAS24/Getty Images/TAS Rights Management
“So is it going to be forever, or is it going to burst into flames?”
Lechmanova identified the strength of the US dollar and the growing tendency of people to spend on experiences rather than material goods as other factors pushing American Swifties towards Europe.
Economies around the world have had a difficult few years dealing with interest rates. It took a lot of work, but inflation has finally started to ease in most major economies, although not as low as their central banks would like.
However, the sudden demand for hotel rooms and catering services in the run-up to major concerts can fuel inflation in a short-lived manner. This happened in Sweden last July, during the “Beyoncé shot”, when core inflation slowed less than expected during the month of the singer’s Renaissance tour in Stockholm.
Could this be a cause for concern in Europe with Swift’s Eras tour? Unlikely, Lechmanova said.
“It may lead to an incident that day, but then it comes back. So when it comes to the impact on inflation trends in Europe, there’s not much to get excited about,” she said.
Even though Swift’s concerts will slip away as a moment in time, they will have a greater impact in smaller cities than in larger ones, Nomura analysts wrote in a March note. The reason is that giants like London and Paris can absorb large numbers of additional visitors, which Liverpool, for example, cannot.
In the UK alone, Barclays estimates the economy will benefit from a £1 billion ($1.27 billion) boost, with concert ticket holders spending 12 times more than the Brit average for an evening. Swifties feed the mania by splurging on concert-themed movies and dressing up for the artist’s various “eras.”
A more localized impact can also be seen in Ireland, where Swift has three concerts planned in June, said George Moran, European economist at Nomura. Fortune.
There is nevertheless a risk of overestimating the economic impact, he warns.
“American cities and the locations of their major stadiums may be very different from the international cities that Taylor Swift will visit in 2024,” Moran said, adding that the possible effects, as shown by the Beyoncé incident in Sweden, are more based on the sector (as in the hotel industry) rather than having a notable impact at the macroeconomic level.
“If the effect was not visible in a small economy like Sweden, it is very unlikely to have a significant effect on larger economies,” he said.
Either way, Europe has already rolled out the red carpet for Swift and her string of performances through August.
With fans crowding her in different venues, eagerly waiting to watch her live, it seems like Swift already owns the summer.
