Taylor Swift and Beyoncé captured the attention of fans and hoteliers alike in 2023 when they set out on their world tours.
As each tour set historic paces in economic output, hotel demand surged in most host markets on concert nights.
Kelsey Fenerty, manager of analytics for STR, and Stephanie Ricca, editorial director of Hotel News Now, joined the Hotel News Now podcast to discuss the events that drove hotel performance across the world in 2023.
The Eras Tour became the first tour to surpass $1 billion and brought in more than $200 million in hotel room revenue in the U.S. Fenerty said Swift’s tour led to strong hotel performance because of the spectacle it became.
“It just built on itself. It became emblematic of that quote unquote FOMO, the fear of missing out, the revenge travel that’s characterized so much of the pandemic,” she said. “One person loved it, or multiple people loved it, and then it just became its own phenomenon that everyone wanted to be a part of it and experience it, so you had that massive demand that hotels absolutely got to capitalize on.”
While the success of Swift’s tour and Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour is likely artist-dependent and not necessarily the beginning of a trend, Ricca said she believes hotels will try to use promotions to create a similar energy and buzz around their properties.
“This, what happened with [Swift] and Beyoncé, is not going to happen again, but we’re going to see every other artist you can think of try it,” she said. “I feel like, just in my gut, every artist you can name is going to be promoting themselves as ‘this is the next Eras Tour.’ And it won’t be, of course, but can it have some positive impact for, say, a hotel running promotions? Sure, they’ve learned a lot.”
Outside of concert events, Fenerty said sporting events such as the FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand and the Rugby World Cup in France had a positive impact on hotel performance in the host markets.
Mainland China saw huge spikes in hotel demand during China’s three biggest holidays of the year: Lunar New Year, May Day and Golden Week.
“Just absolutely incredible, spectacular performance, massive domestic travel across China,” she said. “It was very emblematic that we’re past the pandemic, things are back to normal and we continue to maintain our love of travel even beyond that immediate revenge travel. We’re here to stay, and we’re traveling for real.”
For all of HNN's conversation with Kelsey Fenerty and Stephanie Ricca, listen to the podcast above.
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