BTS Comeback Tour Moves Travel Demand Even Before Tickets Go on Sale
Photo Credit: The BTS band members. (From left: V, Suga, Jin, Jung Kook, RM, Jimin and J Hope.) Big Hit Music
Skift Take
BTS hasn’t played a note yet, but flight and hotel searches are already spiking. Welcome to the new shape of live tourism!
Within hours of K-pop band BTS announcing its comeback world tour, searches for Goyang, South Korea jumped 968% year-on-year on Booking.com.
Busan searches more than doubled for BTS’s June tour dates. Kaohsiung in Taiwan recorded the biggest jump on Booking.com - over 6,700% for the November 19 show.
Outside Asia, Arlington searches rose by more than 2,500%, Sao Paulo by nearly 193%, and Bogota by almost 48%.
“The surge in searches shows that BTS’s comeback and world tour is more than just a music event, but has evolved into a global travel phenomenon as live music events continue to inspire fans to explore the world,” Booking.com said.
Other platforms saw the same reaction. Agoda reported that accommodation searches to Goyang jumped nearly eight times in the week following the announcement. Busan saw a 47% rise. Agoda said the strongest interest in South Korea came from Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, Hong Kong, and China.
