Event Pty Ltd director Simon Thewlis agrees estimates of economic growth from Taylor Swift’s concerts are overblown.
“Artists earn a lot of money from ticket sales and merchandise. The entire program is shipped from the US. Therefore, a large proportion of USD will also flow to the US” – he said.
According to a new report from Japanese investment bank Nomura, Taylor’s global tour has certainly helped the local economy. But the bank questions the extent of the tour’s impact on national data.
Nomura’s global economist Si Ying Toh believes that Taylor Swift’s consumer push is certainly appealing to economic analysts, but the total macroeconomic impact may have been overblown.
According to Nomura’s estimates, from the first quarter to the third quarter of 2023, Taylor Swift’s tour increased nominal US retail sales by 0.03% and real gross domestic product by 0.02%.
According to the business’s calculations, for the whole of 2023, the female singer’s tour accounts for 0.5% of nominal consumption growth.
According to STR data cited by Toh, stops on The Eras Tour saw a 3.1 percentage point increase due to inflation during the month Taylor Swift visited. Data from hotel booking platform Trivago shows similar increases.
Looking specifically at Chicago, Toh estimates hotel prices have increased 3.1 percentage points thanks to the singer’s three performances there. The third most populous city in the US saw occupancy rates increase 8.1 percentage points and hotel revenue per room increase 59% during Taylor Swift’s tour.
Since then, the Illinois consumer price index (CPI) has increased by 0.5 percentage points based on the female singer’s tour alone. CPI is the consumer price index, a percentage index to reflect the relative change in consumer prices over time.
Toh points out these improvements are less likely to materialize in national-level statistics from larger economies such as the US, UK or Japan. However, she believes that this major tour is still worth considering as a potential economic catalyst in many countries around the globe.
Internationally, small economies like Singapore and Sweden could receive the biggest macro boost from Taylor Swift’s tour.
“Externalities play an important role in economic modeling, whether in the form of extreme weather events, pandemics or pop concerts. In recent years, touring has grown to become not only a social phenomenon but also has the potential to become an important driver of economic activity.” – Si Ying Toh analyzed.
