From Taylor Swift To Oasis, Concerts And Events Increasingly Driving Hotel Market

While fans grappled with whether they would definitely maybe get a ticket for the much-heralded Oasis reunion tour and how much of their wallet would empty if they did, hotels in the host cities of London, Manchester, Cardiff, Edinburgh and Dublin are already standing on the shoulders of giants after the impact of Taylor Swift's Eras Tour.

Not only is the UK hotel sector enjoying a bumper investment year, but the industry received even more good news this summer when the Gallagher brothers announced a surprise series of reunion dates that is expected to further boost demand.

While the wide-ranging economic boost Swift's tour gave to global host cities was an unpredictable one-off event, major set-piece tours and sporting events — including the imminent start of a series of NFL games at Wembley and Tottenham’s White Hart Lane venues, plus the Oasis concerts and Coldplay’s tour — are providing a lucrative boost to UK hoteliers' bottom line. 

“As an industry, we have been talking about guests looking for experiences for some time now, and the Swift travel phenomenon certainly took this to a whole new level, with fans travelling across continents to see her,” Hyatt Vice President of Acquisitions and Development for Europe Felicity Black-Roberts said. “It will remain to be seen if the frequency of these mega-events and tours will have an annual impact on demand, but what it does demonstrate is the propensity to spend on this type of event across different demographics.”

It is not just big gigs and sporting showpieces that are bolstering hotel occupancy, but also a consumer trend that embraces a wide range of experiences and special occasions, said Black-Roberts, who is speaking at Bisnow’s UK Hotel Outlook event on 22 October.

This “has to be good news” for markets where there are event spaces, and she added that Hyatt is also seeing demand for a much broader range of experiences, such as nature and adventure immersions, wellbeing, multigenerational travel and milestone celebrations.

“In our online era, real life seems to be attracting a lot of attention,” she said. “And it seems there is much to play for if hoteliers want a piece of the pie. We are already feeling the glow of the Oasis tour. The sports and media segment has historically remained robust during strong economic headwinds, so it is a good segment to bet on.”

Occupancy rates for Greater London hotels from May to August ranged between 75% and 77%, broadly in line with postpandemic rates, although slightly softer than 2023, according to the latest figures from VisitBritain. Similarly, average daily rates and revenue per available room held up compared with previous years but were lower than 2023, underlining the importance of special events to boost plateaued overall demand.

An increasing number of investors have already rolled the dice on the UK hotel sector, with Savills reporting that investment transactions reached an estimated £626M in Q3, up 54% compared to Q3 2023. Total investment for the year stands at £3.8B, already £1.6B ahead of the whole of last year, with forecasts predicting year-end volumes will reach £5B, bringing activity back in line with 2019 levels.

While portfolio deals have dominated, Savills said it had seen improving activity across single assets. In London, year-to-date volumes are up 91% compared to the same period in 2023, having previously lagged the regions. Standout deals include the Pandox acquisition of three Residence Inn by Marriott aparthotels from Starwood for circa £230M and Millemont’s acquisition of Yotel Edinburgh, also from a Starwood Capital affiliate.

“Investors are increasingly targeting structural levers and differentiated business models, with substantial interest in both high-quality and budget assets,” Savills Head of UK Hotel Capital Markets Rob Stapleton said in a statement. 

Within that mix are hotels poised to reap the rewards of attendance at large events, which in the case of Swift attracted not just ticket holders but people who wanted to be part of the wider atmosphere created by an international cultural moment. 

Swift fans flocked to host cities across North America in the first leg of the tour, with numbers averaging around 54,000 fans per concert, spending an average of $1,327.74, according to analysis by Pollstar.

After the singer-songwriter held three concerts in Chicago in June 2023, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker and local tourism leaders said Illinois had broken its hotel revenue record, with Chicago hotel occupancy reaching 97%. And UK venues will no doubt be hoping that Oasis can create a similar buzz.

What marks out these major tours and events is that many visitors are not simply staying on the night of the event but are making it the centrepiece of a short break. According to a Barclays survey, accommodation, at an average £111 per attendee, was the biggest expense after tickets, with 26% of fans travelling to a different city from where they lived to attend the Eras Tour, often combining the concert with a holiday or city break.

Fans are increasingly going all-out on experiences that resonate on a personal level, turning every concert into a potential holiday, every ticket into a cherished memory and every event into an opportunity to splash out on new outfits, food and merchandise, Barclays Head of Group Sponsorship Tom Corbett said in launching the report.

“The 17 Oasis concerts plus a further eight recently announced Coldplay concerts will probably attract a very different demographic [from Swift]. It's clearly positive for hotels in or near concert locations,” PwC Lead Hotel Consultant Stephen Broome said.

According to an analysis by STR, Swift’s Eras Tour, which spanned 47 concerts across 17 European cities over 15 weeks from May to August, saw hotels benefit from extended fan stays, plus the housing of Swift’s tour crew and additional revenue streams such as food and beverage and parking. 

Across all markets, the average daily rate was the primary beneficiary for European hosting cities, rising an average of 51% in local currency compared with the matched days the previous year. The average occupancy lift was 10%, but smaller markets tended to see the greatest occupancy gains. Sundays showed the lowest actual occupancy levels but the highest year-over-year increases. 

“It’s clear to see that the impact of concerts like this is huge, particularly for ADR and for slightly smaller markets like Cardiff and Liverpool,” STR Director Thomas Emmanuel said. “I think these events are incredibly important and are something of a bonus for hoteliers when they are not recurring events. One good thing for UK hotels is that the market can expect to regularly attract events which drive demand, which is, of course, a huge opportunity for them.”

Liverpool, the second-smallest market hosting concerts during the European tour, experienced the third-greatest ADR increase at 89% and posted occupancy gains of 11% over a three-day weekend in June. At 91%, occupancy was the highest across the four weeks spanning the concert days, which averaged 78%.

London was the only market to host two separate concert periods, the first over a three-day weekend in June and the second for five days in August. June occupancy during the concert days, at 87%, was flat year-on-year, while August's occupancy of 91% was up 10% year-on-year. June ADR increased 6%, while August ADR increased 18%. And STR said that the impact in August is notable “because it is not often that one event can have an impact of this magnitude in a market of this size.”

The long-term trend toward consumer spending prioritising experiences means that major set-piece events may become increasingly important to city-based hotel performance and the investor appeal of such hotels, Oxford Economics Managing Director of EMEA David Goodger said.

“Leisure events have undoubtedly driven growth,” he said. “If this year was all about Taylor Swift, I suspect 2025 will be the year of Oasis.”