Look What She Made You Do: Taylor Swift has changed the way a generation travels, and Swifties are now going international

When I put out a call on Instagram looking for people who are traveling internationally to see Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, I thought I might hear of a friend of a friend of a friend who has a cousin who was inspired by Taylor to cross an ocean and maybe even get their first passport. This was naïve: Despite being a Taylor fan myself, I vastly underestimated her influence. No fewer than six friends responded to tell me they’re traveling abroad to see Eras, many of them to see the concert a second time, or put me in direct contact with friends who are. And those are just the people I already knew. 

Swift’s tour has so far generated about USD$5 billion in tourism revenue in the United States alone. On a local level, that impact is massive: Chicago hotels had their best weekend ever, with 97 percent occupancy, and the city hopes Swifties will help change its reputation for the better. In Los Angeles, fans pumped an estimated $320 million into the local economy. The Eras Tour is US singer-songwriter Swift’s sixth concert tour who describes it as a journey through all of her musical “eras”.

In November, she’ll start her international tour in Buenos Aires, and in 2024 she’ll swing through Tokyo, Singapore, Australia, and across Europe. When she does, she’ll be performing not only for residents of the cities she visits, but for foreign tourists traveling across oceans to see her. For many of these Swifties, it’s sparking a new interest in international travel. 

Alana Paris is a self-described Swiftie whose commitment to the artist is impressive. She lives in southern Florida, where she works as a travel publicist for an agency called Quinn PR, and this summer she traveled to New Jersey to see the Eras tour. She travels occasionally for work, but she’s never been to Europe—and the Eras tour seemed like the perfect excuse to finally make it happen.

“When I saw she was launching all these European dates, I thought, ‘This is the perfect opportunity to go to Europe,’” Paris tells me. She and her friends pre-registered for tickets in several cities and they were able to get tickets in Madrid. So they’re now planning a nine- to 10-day tour of Spain ahead of the concert—something they’ve never done. The process for securing tickets abroad seemed easier than getting them for US locations, she adds.

While Paris is an avid concert-goer and has seen Beyonce, John Mayer, the Jonas Brothers, and many other major bands in live performances, she’s never traveled internationally for a band. Swift’s music just… hits different.

“When I got to college, my first semester, I was really, really homesick,”  says Paris. Her dad sent her Swift’s Speak Now album in a care package, and “that was the moment I went from a normal fan to an obsessed fan.” She listened to it over and over again, and it got her through a really tough time. On top of that, she says the Eras tour really is just that phenomenal, calling it a “dream come true for any fan.”

Another Swiftie, Amelia Nelson, is a software engineer in Los Angeles who’s been a “super fan” since Swift’s first single. She met Swift once when she opened a George Strait concert, and this year she saw the Eras twice in LA. Now she also has floor seats in Vienna for next summer.

“The Eras tour feels like a walk down memory lane,” she says via Instagram DMs. “Each song/album/era is associated with different memories for me that span most of my formative years, so it’s very special to me.”

Nelson tells me she usually travels abroad once or twice per year, but she’s never done so for a concert tour before. Swift made it an easy decision though: “She is generous and humble while also being the biggest powerhouse in the music industry right now (male or female),” says Nelson. “Regardless of whether you like her music or not, you have to respect her and her songwriting, physical ability, talent, tenacity, and kindness. She does so much for her fans and I’m happy to be able to support her in whatever way I can.”

“Before, I think I would have thought, there’s no way I’m paying to go on a holiday for the sole purpose of seeing a show. Whereas now, I would consider going somewhere for something like that.”

- Alim Kheraj, culture writer

For its part, the travel industry has rallied to encourage the hype and capitalize on visitors who want to make a whole vacation out of the concert. Tour operator Contiki, for example, is running a handful of trips coinciding with European Eras tour dates for fans to “Taylor your Contiki.” Swift has trademarked a slew of names, phrases, and initials, so the company’s marketing is a bit subtle on booking pages. However, via email, a PR rep said that they’ll encourage sing-a-longs on buses, have friendship bracelet-making kits on hand, and will offer optional visits to relevant sites in Paris and London. Destinations eager to welcome new visitors, such as Toronto, have also published Eras-focused itineraries.

But why Taylor, why now, and why so many people? I asked my friend Alim Kheraj, a freelance culture writer in the UK. Kheraj specializes in music journalism, and once traveled from London to Las Vegas to see Britney Spears in concert. (He has tickets to two Eras concerts: One in London, and one in Edinburgh).

Kheraj calls the Eras tour a “phenomenon,” fueled in part by headlines about Ticketmaster buckling under the stress of millions of fans trying to get tickets: “Her profile at the moment is perhaps as high as it’s ever been,” he says. “She’s never been bigger. She’s probably the biggest music artist on the planet right now.” And because of the Ticktmaster kerfuffle, “the ticket sales became a news story, so the people who aren’t even interested bought into the narrative of the show.”

Traveling for artists in itself isn’t new, says Kheraj, as there have always been obsessed fans who travel around the world following musicians who’ve made it big-time. But the volume of people doing it now, for Swift, is noteworthy. “Before, people would have thought, ‘those people are crazy fans. It’s normalized now.”

This has shifted in part because we’re all documenting our fandom on social media now, so “being a fan has changed,” adds Kheraj. “It’s almost become aspirational to show that much devotion because there’s a way to document your devotion on whatever platforms.”

Whether Taylor has inspired a new generation of international travelers to keep traveling post-Eras remains to be seen, but it’s not absurd to think Swifties’ habits could be changed permanently. Paris, for one, is already thinking about making a second transatlantic trip next summer to see Eras again in London, if she can get her hands on a ticket (and yes, she’ll be going to see the concert film this weekend. She has tickets for showings on Friday and Sunday). And other jetsetting Swifties might also be more likely to travel again in the future once they’ve done it for Eras.

“From my own experience, once I did it for Britney, in Vegas, the idea of doing it again has seemed less stupid to me,” Kheraj says. “Before, I think I would have thought, there’s no way I’m paying to go on a holiday for the sole purpose of seeing a show. Whereas now, I would consider going somewhere for something like that.”

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