Breaking News -PH seen to be ‘Taylor Swift-ready by 2028’ with new arena in Clark…See More 👇

MANILA – Will the next major Taylor Swift concert tour finally have a Philippine leg?

That’s what the Clark International Airport Corporation (CIAC) is aiming for as it sets out to build an up to 35,000-seater arena in Clark, Pampanga.

“We want to be able to host the major international events– professional sports and bigger concerts like Coldplay or Taylor Swift. And we will be Taylor Swift-ready by 2028,” said CIAC President Arrey Perez during the Build Better More Infrastructure Forum in New Clark City in Tarlac on Friday.

Perez said the CIAC is just waiting for proposals from the private sector as it looks to fund the complex, which will also include other establishments such as a convention center and a mall, through a Public-Private Partnership (PPP)

“It’s a huge undertaking. It’s 40 hectares and more than P30 billion so we will really need the partnership with the private sector. We already did a lot of promotions, market sensing, market missions, and we’ve gotten some interest,” he said.

According to Perez, there are at least 3 entities that have shown interest in building the project with them: one from Singapore, one from the US, and one local.

“It’s a mix of local and international companies who are interested. Some are planning to join forces together, he added.

Perez said the future Clark Arena would be the perfect venue for big events considering that it will only be within walking distance from the Clark International Airport. CIAC is also planning to build a multi-modal facility in the area to make it more accessible to the public.

This is on top of the planned North-South Commuter Railway project that will connect Clark to Manila and further down to Laguna.

“So imagine, if you go here to watch, you come from Manila, you ride the train, you bring your car– there’s a multimodal terminal. Or your relatives from Singapore, Hong Kong or wherever, they can fly to Clark,” said Perez.

“Apart from that, Clark really needs also more attractions so we can attract more passengers and more airlines to go to the airport kasi ang aking mandate is to make sure the airport will grow,” he added.

The Philippines earlier missed out on Taylor Swift’s Eras tour, hailed the highest-grossing concert tour of all time, allegedly due to Singapore’s exclusivity clause that supposedly prevented the superstar from holding her concert in other Southeast Asian countries.

“As people who enjoy traveling and enjoy music, if you can find an opportunity to combine the two, it’s really special,” said Hale, who is pregnant with her first child.

FOR STOCKHOLM, 120,000 SWIFTIES CAN’T BE WRONG

The local economic impact of what the zeitgeist has termed “Swiftonomics” and the “Swift lift” can be considerable. Airbnb reported Tuesday that searches on its platform for the U.K. cities where Swift is performing in June and August — Edinburgh, Liverpool, Cardiff and London — increased an average of 337% when tickets went on sale last summer.

Not to be outdone when it comes to trend-spotting, the property rentals company cited the demand as an example of “passion tourism,” or travel “driven by concerts, sports and other cultural events.”

In Stockholm, 120,000 out-of-towners from 130 countries — among them 10,000 from the U.S. — are expected to swarm Sweden’s capital this month, Stockholm Chamber of Commerce chief economist Carl Bergqvist said. Stockholm is the only Scandinavian city on Swift’s tour, and airlines added extra flights from nearby Denmark, Finland and Norway to bring people to the May 17-19 shows, he said.

The city’s 40,000 hotel rooms are sold out even though prices skyrocketed for the tour dates, Bergqvist said. Concert visitors are expected to pump around 500 million Swedish kroner, or over $46 million, into the local economy over the course of their stays, an estimate that does not include what they paid for Swift tickets or to get to Sweden, he said.

“So this is going to be huge for the tourism sector in Sweden and Stockholm in particular,” Bergqvist said.

Nightclubs, restaurants and bars are seizing the opportunity to cater to fans with Taylor Swift-themed events, such as karaoke, quizzes and after-concert dance parties.

Houston resident Caroline Matlock, 29, saw Swift more than a year ago when the Eras Tour came to the Texas city. Now she’s making more friendship bracelets and trying to learn a few words of Swedish as she prepares to see the 3 1/2-hour show in Stockholm. The idea of seeing Swift in Europe was her friend’s, and Matlock needed some persuading at first.

“I was like, ‘I only want to go if it’s a country I haven’t been to. I’ve seen Taylor Swift,’” she said.

Visiting the Swedish cities of Oslo and Gothenburg are on their itinerary. The concert is the last night of the trip and Matlock looks forward to interacting with Swifties from other countries: “Americans tend to have a very obsessive culture, especially Taylor Swift-related, so I’m curious if the crowd will be more toned-down.”

WILL TOUR TOURISM ENDURE AFTER ERAS?

It remains to be seen if the music tourism trend has legs as long and strong as Swift’s and Beyoncé’s, and if it will carry over to Billie Eilish, Usher and other artists with world tours scheduled next year. Expedia’s Fish thinks other big-name artists in Europe this summer will prove that booking a foreign trip around a concert is catching on.

Kat Morga, a travel consultant based in Nashville, isn’t so sure. Morga saw Swift perform in Nashville last year and helped two clients with school-aged children book European family vacations this summer that include seeing Swift in concert. But she thinks the difficulty of navigating ticket purchases through language barriers, currency conversions, international banking regulations and the risk of cancellations will limit the appeal of regular gig getaways.

“I think this is an anomaly,” Morga said. “People aren’t typically going to build their $20,000 huge family vacation only because Taylor Swift is there. She’s the one-off. She’s special.”

Booking Holdings CEO Glenn Fogel, whose company operates Booking.com, priceline.com, agoda.com, Kayak and OpenTable, is even less enthusiastic about concert tours as a tourism instigator. The Swift Effect causes a “little blip” when the superstar goes to smaller destinations, but for the worldwide travel industry, “one star touring around does not make a difference,” he said.

“It may just shift it a little bit. A person was going to go to the Caribbean for a week vacation. Instead that person (says), ‘Let’s travel to the Taylor Swift thing,'” Fogel said. “It doesn’t increase it. It just moves it from here to there.”