There’s no shortage of debate when discussing US hotel performance or the country’s economic prospects headed into the final months of 2023.

One portion of those discussions not requiring debate, however, is the massive lift provided by Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour.

Best believe U.S. hotels were still “bejeweled” when Swift came to town, as concert dates after our previous update (June through early August) increased the tour impact to $208 million in additional U.S. hotel room revenue.

Methodology

The starting leg of Swift’s U.S. tour, analyzed here, began in mid-March with a total of 28 shows in 10 cities. The second half of the star’s 2023 dates in the U.S. pushed those totals to 53 shows in 20 cities.

Concert stops were typically 2-3 nights, always including a Friday and Saturday. Los Angeles was the major exception with six nights of concerts wrapping up on Wednesday, 9 August. Sunday night shows occurred in nine of Swift’s tour stops, which provided those markets an added boost as Sunday is typically the slowest demand night each week.

The analysis used the average of matched days in shouldering weeks as a performance baseline. Additional adjustments were made for three markets to account for the reduced performance levels typical of the Fourth of July holiday.

Putting $208,000,000 in context

As outlined in our previous Taylor Swift impact analysis, the first 28 shows of the tour added $98.2 million in added room revenue on top of normal seasonal levels. The overall $208 million estimated impact now three months later is conservative, accounting only for the 53 concert nights.

What can’t be measured on top of that impact are extended fan stays, extra lift stemming from show advance/breakdown crews, the broad range of other economic activities beyond concert-night room revenues, or added impact on other hotel revenue streams, like P&L, parking, etc.

To put the impact into context, $208 million is basically the combined room revenue generated in New York City and Philadelphia in one week. Another way to look at it, $208 million is the average daily room revenue reported by the country’s 17 largest markets.

While that makes the total U.S. impact modest, many host markets experienced unprecedented windfall beyond baseline levels. Two markets—Pittsburgh and Nashville—doubled their revenue per available room (RevPAR) from shoulder weeks. Eight markets overall reported RevPAR premiums of 50% or higher.

Market Average RevPAR on Concert Days

Read the full research here