D.C.-area travel agents are planning bougie Taylor Swift Euro trips
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Taylor Swift performs onstage during night four of her Eras Tour in Paris on May 12. Photo: Kevin Mazur/TAS24/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management
D.C.-area travel agents are planning elaborate trips for American clients jaunting to Europe for Taylor Swift's Eras tour this summer.
Why it matters: Many fans are taking advantage of significantly cheaper ticket prices — thanks to tighter regulations on fees and resales in Europe — and making a summer vacation out of it.
State of play: There tend to be two camps of Euro trip Swifties, says local agent Jen Perrone: those who snagged overseas tickets to beat the high U.S. prices or those balling out and creating a travel experience around a show.
- In the latter camp: Perrone's clients recently took a girls' trip to the Paris leg, with an itinerary she titled "Paris (Taylor's version)."
- Included: a hotel welcome with macarons bearing Swift's signature, a champagne toast at the top of the Eiffel Tower to be "taken by the view" à la the "Paris" lyrics, and a workshop to make their own handbags out of Chanel fabric (fitting, as Swift boo Travis Kelce reportedly gifted her a Chanel bag before the Paris leg).
- Total spend: Around $10,000.
Perrone is also planning a huge Swifties trip to the London show, during which the itinerary will likely be based around the places listed in the lyrics of Swift's "London Boy."
Travel agent Patrick Millard — who's based in Florida but has D.C.-area clients — planned a two-week cruise from Bergen, Norway, to Reykjavik, Iceland, for a couple ending their trip at Swift's London show.
- Afterward, they'll come down from the TayTay high at an extremely charming five-star resort in the English countryside. All in, Millard estimates the trip will run around $32,000.
- Millard, meanwhile, is traveling through Italy for eight weeks this summer and plans to see Swift in Milan — his wife's third time at the Eras Tour.
What they're saying: Swift is big into storytelling and world-building within her own work, so it makes sense that fans would want to craft their own moments around the tour, says Perrone.
- "As a travel adviser, I love that because that gives me so much to work from in order to create special moments on someone's trip."
- Plus, Swift has cross-generational appeal, making her the perfect artist for a mother-daughter or family trip, Perrone tells Axios.
And for the folks who snagged tix for the price, traveling overseas likely adds up to the same amount as an expensive U.S. ticket and the cost of domestic travel, says local travel agent Melinda Fortunato, who's planning a mother-daughter trip to the London show.
- "They're like, 'We're going to be paying the same price anyway, let's just make a vacation out of it.'"
The intrigue: The Eras Tour shows in Paris last week attracted at least five times more luxury travelers from the U.S. than anticipated travelers for this summer's Olympic Games in the French capital, Bloomberg reported.
- About 10,000 Americans were expected to attend the Eras Tour shows in Stockholm this past weekend alone, per AP.
Tickets for Swift's remaining U.S. shows — in Miami, New Orleans, and Indianapolis — have skyrocketed since she dropped her latest album, "The Tortured Poets Department," last month.
- The average lowest ticket price is a whopping $2,600 per ticket, Billboard reported, citing data from TicketIQ.
- By comparison, the average lowest ticket price for her Paris kickoff show was $340 per ticket — about 87% cheaper. Tickets are even lower on some of her other stops, like Stockholm and Lisbon, per Billboard.
Zoom in: In many of Swift's planned European stops, hotel and short-term rental prices have spiked and seen increased booking rates well in advance of her arrival, The Guardian reported.
- Stockholm's Chamber of Commerce said in March that it anticipates the Eras Tour shows to pump more than $46 million into the local economy.