Taylor Swift is doing her bit for Aussie tourism … and it hasn’t cost Tourism Australia a cent.
In response to the release of tickets for Swift’s Eras Tour, searches and bookings for flights and accommodation within Australia (and even into the country) are booming.
Virgin Australia says it has seen a massive 656 per cent rise in bookings to Melbourne and Sydney for the singer’s concerts following the first ticket release on Wednesday (compared to the day prior to the release).
“Swifties based in Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide are leading the interstate fanfare with the most booked fares across the concert dates,” a Virgin Australia spokesperson said.
“We are really excited to join in the celebrations as Swifties make their way across the country with Virgin Australia.
“Our wonderful team members look forward to “shaking it off” to bring fans’ “wildest dreams” to life sky-high.”
According to VA, Brisbane to Sydney, Adelaide to Sydney, Melbourne to Sydney, Brisbane to Melbourne and Perth to Sydney are the most popular routes for the concert dates over the past 48 hours.
Virgin says it expects to see another increase after the second release of Swift tickets today.
Across the ditch
Air New Zealand says it is adding more than 2,000 seats to Sydney and Melbourne capacity to meet the huge demand for Swift’s Australian concerts, after NZ’s omission from the tour.
The extra seats will come via new return flights from Wellington, Christchurch, and Auckland to Sydney and Melbourne along with additional seats on existing flights. The airline has even gone as far as naming some of the new flights ‘NZ1989’.
“When tour dates for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour were released last week, we saw a surge in demand for the final day of our Tasman sale with more than 3,500 Kiwis booking flights to coincide with concert dates,” Air New Zealand chief customer and sales officer Leanne Geraghty said.
“Now, as general release goes live tomorrow, we’re expecting another surge in demand for travel.”
Air NZ’s extra seats are on sale now.
“Fans hoping to secure their flights will have to act fast, we expect the additional capacity will sell out swiftly,” Geraghty said.
“During high demand periods, fares increase so we can manage a small supply of seats for last minute travel.
“We also typically see higher demand and hence pricing for late week and weekend travel dates.”
Elsewhere, Webjet has experienced a spike in flight searches around the tour dates, with a 282 per cent increase in interest for domestic flights to Sydney between 22 and 25 February 2024 in June (compared to May), and a 151 per cent increase in searches for domestic flights to Melbourne between 15 and 17 February 2024.
Over 1,000% rise
Meanwhile, Hilton Hotels is reporting an enormous increase in hotel bookings around the singer’s tour, with Hilton Sydney booking volume rising by 1,129 per cent after the tour announcement and Hilton Melbourne booking volume rising a whopping 9,400 per cent.
“We’ve witnessed a significant surge in bookings from Swiftie fans planning to stay at our Melbourne and Sydney hotels in February off the back of the Taylor Swift Eras Tour announcement last week,” Hilton area vice president and head of Australasia Paul Hutton said.
“We’re expecting to see this jump up even further when the general public tickets go on sale on Friday so encourage fans lucky enough to score a ticket to book now.”
