Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour Surges Airbnb Demand, Prompts Slew of New Owners To Put Up Their Homes

Taylor Swift’s “Swiftonomics” strikes again: This time, she’s taking the homestay industry by storm. As Ms. Swift’s fans travel the world to see the pop star’s sensational Eras Tour, Airbnb bookings in areas along the stretch have surged. Her impressive impact is akin to the rise in bookings precipitated by the recent total solar eclipse — an event America will only see again in 2044 — Airbnb’s communications manager, Haven Thorn, tells the Sun. As the country geared up to see February’s full solar eclipse, the homestay platform saw more than a thousand new hosts across the path of totality open their homes for guests. Such a trend is being similarly played out with Ms. Swift’s Eras Tour.Homeowners in areas in which Ms. Swift is set to perform have realized that the Eras tour offers a “significant economic opportunity” for them “to make substantial money in a relatively short amount of time,” Mr. Thorn says. As a result, Airbnb is seeing swaths of new owners listing their homes, adding to the cohort of hosts known as “seasonal hosts” or “big event hosts.” “I like to think of Taylor Swift as a miniature solar eclipse, if you will,” he adds. “Wherever she goes, she creates economic opportunity. She unlocks new hosts. It’s good business for everyone involved when Taylor Swift is in town.”Further, these hosts are helping to scale the accommodation offerings for Swifties in towns that might not have the necessary hotel space for concertgoers. “If they’re welcoming Taylor Swift later this year,” Mr. Thorn says, “they’re not going to be able to open a hotel in just a few months, right?” Homestay platforms ensure that Swifties are able to secure lodging in whichever city the pop star performs. Ms. Swift’s impact on the European Airbnb market is already being seen, as searches for homes on the platform by American tourists during the dates of Ms. Swift’s Europe tour increased by nearly 70 percent, an Airbnb report shows. The figure gets even more striking when broken down by city, with Edinburgh seeing a 500 percent increase in searches for stays on Airbnb compared to the previous month. With Ms. Swift heading back to the states in a few months to finish off the tour, cities like Indianapolis are seeing “record searches,” Mr. Thorn says. The findings from Airbnb add to the mounting evidence of Ms. Swift’s unprecedented impact on the economy — known aptly as “Swiftonomics” — which has caught the attention of politicians, economists, and even central bankers. Just a few weeks ago, TD Securities analysts reported that the bump in tourism from Ms. Swift’s tour in London — set just around the time of the release of a key inflation report — could prompt the English central bank to delay a much-awaited interest rate cut. “A surge in hotel prices could be significant, potentially adding up to 30 basis points to services inflation and 15 basis points to headline inflation,” the analysts told CNBC.According to the numbers from Airbnb, searches for homestays in London surged by an enormous 300 percent after sales for the pop star’s performance dates went live. The heightened demand has pushed up the average price per night for an Airbnb stay at London during Ms. Swift’s tour dates to 344 pounds from the usual 184, an online mortgage advisor, Mojo Mortgages, found. Ms. Swift will round out the European leg of the tour with performances at Milan, Gelsenkirchen, Hamburg, Munich, Warsaw, Vienna, and London, before she takes a month-long break in September. The pop sensation heads back to America in October for a handful of appearances, in Miami, New Orleans, and Indianapolis, before she finishes off her tour in Canada. Her last performance will be on December 8 at Vancouver’s BC Place Stadium.

Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour Surges Airbnb Demand, Prompts Slew of New Owners To Put Up Their Homes

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