The final shows of The Eras Tour aren’t until December, yet Royce Chwin is already preparing for Taylor Swift’s arrival in Vancouver. The chief of executive of Destination Vancouver, a nonprofit promoting tourism, is planning for big crowds and eyeing Swift’s economic impact in similarly sized cities like Denver and Seattle.
In July, a pair of concerts in Denver added an estimated $140 million to the U.S. state of Colorado’s gross domestic product. The tour’s stop in Seattle brought the city a single-day record of $7.4 million in hotel and restaurant revenues.
“It’s such good news for fans and for our tourism and hospitality sector, particularly since early December is generally a slower month for major events,” Chwin told ShareAmerica of Swift’s plans to close her international tour with three shows in Vancouver.
The city was added after Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau joined other world leaders in pitching their countries or cities for a stop on the tour, reflecting the economic boom that creative women — and their legions of fans — can bring.
Swift’s Eras Tour, Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour and Barbie, the 2023 film written and directed by Greta Gerwig, have grossed billions of dollars worldwide, while spurring revenue for venues, hotels, restaurants and other businesses.
In the United States, where women drive between 70% and 80% of consumer purchasing decisions, the Renaissance World Tour has added $4.5 billion to the economy, according to Forbes. The Eras Tour is projected to gross $5.7 billion.
The economic impact is perhaps most noticeable in smaller cities. In Santa Clara, a California city of 127,000, hotels sold out for weeks around a Swift concert. “The moment the concert was announced … the phones rang off the hook at our hotels,” Christine Lawson of Discover Santa Clara told ABC News.
Swift’s two shows in Cincinnati in June and July were an opportunity for some businesses and nonprofits to join the festivities and drum up support. Pig Works, a nonprofit that organizes running races, set up booths outside the stadium offering free hair braiding, glitter makeup and friendship bracelets, all popular among Swift concertgoers.
Iris Simpson Bush, chief executive of Pig Works, which takes its name for the outsized role of hogs in Cincinnati’s economic history, told ShareAmerica that not long after the pre-concert festivities, the nonprofit saw a bump in registrations for races.
“We had one of our largest fields of participants last October and think it was probably the good karma of supporting the” festivities before the concerts in June and July, Bush said.