welcom to America today with a new article about Fans Follow Taylor Swift to Europe for Cheaper Tickets
Thousands of ride-or-die Taylor Swift fans who missed out on her U.S. concert tour last year or didn’t want to buy exorbitantly priced tickets to see her again found an out-of-the-way solution: Fly to Europe.
Online travel company Expedia says continent-hopping by Swift’s devotees is part of a larger trend it dubbed “Tour tourism” while observing a pattern that emerged during Beyoncé’s Renaissance world tour.
Some North American fans who plan to fly overseas for the Eras Tour said they justified the expense after noticing that tighter restrictions on ticket fees and resales in Europe made seeing Swift perform abroad no more costly – and potentially cheaper – than catching her closer to home.
Houston resident Caroline Matlock, 29, saw Swift more than a year ago when the Eras Tour came to the Texas city.
The concert is the last night of the trip and Matlock looks forward to interacting with Swifties from other countries: “Americans tend to have a very obsessive culture, especially Taylor Swift-related, so I’m curious if the crowd will be more toned-down.” It remains to be seen if the music tourism trend has legs as long and strong as Swift’s and Beyoncé’s, and if it will carry over to Billie Eilish, Usher and other artists with world tours scheduled next year.
Morga saw Swift perform in Nashville last year and helped two clients with school-aged children book European family vacations this summer that include seeing Swift in concert.
“People aren’t typically going to build their $20,000 huge family vacation only because Taylor Swift is there. She’s the one-off. She’s special.” Booking Holdings CEO Glenn Fogel, whose company operates Booking.com, priceline.com, agoda.com, Kayak and OpenTable, is even less enthusiastic about concert tours as a tourism instigator.