SINGAPORE – Swiftie tourism – the phenomenon of Taylor Swift fans travelling to different countries to attend the American pop star’s Eras Tour concerts – has emerged as a significant economic force in the past year.
A recent report from Bloomberg highlighted that her shows in Paris on May 9 to 12 – which kicked off the European leg of her tour – may have drawn five times as many Americans as the French capital’s upcoming Olympic Games in late July to early August.
But there is another emerging variety of “Taylor Tourism”, which sees fans flocking to locales mentioned in her music.
And that has become even stronger with the April 19 release of her latest and 11th album, The Tortured Poets Department (TTPD), which includes tracks titled Florida!!! and So Long, London.
And on the track The Black Dog, the 34-year-old singer-songwriter bitterly laments seeing her former lover walking “into some bar called The Black Dog”.
Swifties surmised that it referred to The Black Dog pub in London’s Vauxhall neighbourhood, as Swift had previously spent a lot of time in London with her former boyfriend, British actor Joe Alwyn.
One pub employee told entertainment outlet People: “We’ve had (Swifties) from all over… Every single day since the album has been released, we’ve had to turn people away as we’re at maximum capacity.”
As one member of the Taylor Swift forum on Reddit wrote: “I always forget that there are thousands and thousands of people who treat every location she mentions as a brand-new tourist attraction.”
The Straits Times rounds up eight travel destinations immortalised in her hit songs that should be on every Swiftie’s bucket list.
