Pop star Taylor Swift played the first of seven shows in Australia on Friday as part of her iconic world tour The Eras Tour. The concert series will give the country's economy a temporary boost.
Swift performed a concert in Melbourne on Friday evening, where she will perform two more concerts in the coming days. This will be followed by four shows in Sydney. Mayor Sally Capp told Australian media the tour could generate A$1.2 billion for that first city alone. This amounts to approximately 727 million euros.
Economists say the impact on the Australian economy is temporary. This is partly because Australians' savings are at their lowest levels since late 2007 and consumers are hesitant due to concerns about rising costs of living.
Concerts lead to increased spending on tickets, transportation and overnight stays in hotels, but this is likely to be at the expense of other sectors in the country, says James McIntyre, an economist at Bloomberg News. It is estimated that people spend money on concerts, and have no money left for other things.
“People decide what is really important to them,” central bank Governor Michelle Bullock said in a press conference earlier this month. In it, she discussed, among other things, the so-called “Taylor Swift inflation,” which causes, for example, air travel prices and hotel reservations to rise. “And Taylor Swift is obviously very important to a lot of people.”
Swift will perform three concerts at Johan Cruyff Square in Amsterdam on July 4, 5 and 6.
