European cities hope jet-setting Taylor Swift fans will splash the cash for Eras tour

Tim Brown, 44, and his wife, Marcella, 34, may not consider themselves bona fide “Swifties”, but when it was announced last June that Taylor Swift would be visiting their corner of the globe this summer they could not resist joining the scramble for a pair of tickets.

Map of locations for the European leg of the Eras tour The pop culture event of the summer will arrive in Europe next month, kicking off in Paris on 9 May and wrapping up in London on 20 August with 49 dates in between in Sweden, Ireland, Portugal, Germany, Poland, Austria, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

Yet even in Germany’s rust belt the influx of Swift fans is temporarily transforming the hotel market: any two-bedroom apartments that remain available are going for €800-2,000 a night, with cheaper accommodation available only in surrounding cities that are just as off the usual tourist track as Gelsenkirchen, such as Essen, Bochum or Herne.

Of all the tour’s European stops, Vienna is experiencing the most notable impact on its rental market, with booking rates for the nights of Swift’s concerts recorded in February 44% higher than at the same point the previous year.

Due to yield management – airlines adjusting prices based on expected demand – a scramble for airborne journeys into cities that host the Eras tour is more likely to result in more expensive tickets rather than additional flights.

According to data available through the open-access aviation tracker ADS-B exchange, Swift’s jets caused carbon emissions of about 2,830 tonnes of CO 2 equivalent over the course of the US Eras tour – about 1,700 times the annual contribution of an average person.