If you’ve lost track of how many people in your circle have recently posted pictures of themselves at a Formula 1 race or a Taylor Swift concert, you’re probably not alone. Sports and music tourism are growing at an unprecedented pace and are forecast to be a $1.5 trillion industry by 2032, according to a new study by Collinson International Ltd., which owns Priority Pass and LoungeKey airport lounges around the world.
Sports tourism accounts for the largest share of this, valued at $564.7 billion in 2023 and expected to rise to $1.33 trillion over the next eight years. Music tourism is expected to contribute another $13.8 billion, more than doubling its current value of $6.6 billion.
For its report, released on July 29, Collinson defined travellers as anyone who has flown to an event abroad or in their own country. Of the 8,537 travellers surveyed from 17 countries, more than four in five (83%) have flown to a sporting event, while 71% have flown to a concert in the past three years or plan to do so in the next 12 months.
Collinson used these results to model how the industry has evolved and may continue to evolve – assuming linear growth despite history-making events like Swift’s “Eras Tour” or the first Summer Olympics in eight years to allow on-site spectators, currently underway in Paris.
“People today value experiences more than things,” says Christopher Ross, President of Collinson International EMEA. “When you go to a sporting or music event, the experience doesn’t start when you walk into the stadium. It’s about the planning, the journey itself and the excitement.”
About 83% of people who travel to events attend football matches, basketball games, the Olympics, Formula 1 races or tennis tournaments – the five most popular sporting events in descending order.
In a world where streaming networks have created easily accessible paths to fandom, Ross says, “the ability to become a global fan has become much more of a reality.”
69% of sports fans surveyed attended football matches and said they had recently travelled to a live match or planned to do so in the next year.
This includes the more than one million fans who gathered at the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, but not those who want to attend the next World Cup in 2026.
Formula 1, meanwhile, has been growing in popularity among younger generations since Netflix Inc. released its docuseries Drive to Survive in 2019; a full 30% of F1 fans attributed their interest in the sport to the show. In 2023, an average race weekend saw more than 270,000 spectators on site, up from 195,000 in 2019.
Not only are more and more people interested in the sport, but ticket prices are also rising. In Britain, tickets for this summer’s races already cost 600 pounds ($765) for the best seats in the stands, while general admission often cost more than 400 pounds per person – two years ago it was around 300 pounds. British racing driver Lewis Hamilton publicly criticized the rising prices.
Ross says these tickets are just one aspect of the sports tourism economy, which also includes hotel stays, restaurant meals, taxi rides, merchandise and other expenses. Collinson data shows that 77% of travelers arrive one or two days before a concert or competition and about 80% stay one to three days afterward. Sports tourists spend the most, with 51% spending more than $500 per trip per person on flights and other expenses, not including tickets to the event.
Take Las Vegas, for example, which hosted an F1 Grand Prix race in November 2023. The event brought an economic boost to the city of $1.5 billion, 50% more than the Super Bowl would bring in just three months later.
“It’s a younger demographic,” Ross says of F1 fans who are most likely to spend extra on their sporting travel. “It seems counterintuitive because you’d think they’d have less disposable income,” Ross adds.
This does not diminish the impact of other events.
While the Summer Olympics in Paris are not as big an international tourism rush as expected, they are still attracting enough tourists to increase Airbnb bookings by 133 percent compared to the same period last year. International tourists are expected to pay around $5,000 for hotel stays, flights and tickets. And sports fans, Collinson says, are also willing to spend money in airports – which is significant for the company.
According to the study, more than half of sports fans spend $500 or more at the airport alone. The biggest spenders are those aged 25 to 34: a third of them spend over $1,000 while waiting to board their flight.
In the music sector, Collinson cites major events such as Rock in Rio, Coachella and Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour as driving factors for tourism, but the latter is an unprecedented anomaly.
According to United Airlines Holdings Inc., Swift fans drove a 45% year-over-year increase in airfares to destinations such as Milan and Munich during the concert dates, and the tour led to booking spikes at top Paris hotels that were even bigger than the Olympics.
The question for the hotel industry is how to capitalize on this trend. Marriott International used the Eras Tour as an opportunity to attract new members to its Bonvoy loyalty program and offered free tickets through prize draws.
In contrast, the Auberge Resorts Collection, which operates 27 five-star resorts from Italy to Hawaii, is partnering with Mercedes-Benz to create a new concert series starting in October that has so far featured live performances by Kate Hudson, Maren Morris and LeAnn Rimes. The legendary Blackberry Farm Resort in Tennessee, which has its own concert hall, will host performances by Kacey Musgraves, Emmylou and Friends and Noah Kahan in the coming months. General admission tickets typically start at $1,000 per person.
