When Beyoncé says she wants something big, she delivers. With her Renaissance Tour, she’s sold out shows across two continents with fans clamoring to do just about anything to get tickets. And those nights of excellent outfits, heart-stopping moments, and precise choreography aren’t the only gifts that the Renaissance Tour is giving.
The tour is also having a huge impact on local economies—which can actually be traced by data. Everything from restaurants to beauty salons see an uptick in business when Beyoncé is rolling through town. By tracking search trend data, Yelp was able to determine what businesses have been most sought out during the Renaissance Tour. You may recall something similar happened with hotel prices for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour.
In Philadelphia, searches for hotels and travel spiked by 21%, shopping by 10%, restaurants by 30%, and beauty services by 9% during the week of July 6-12 (Beyoncé’s Philadelphia tour was on July 12), versus the weekly average of searches in the previous year at the same time.
Throughout the tour, nail technicians saw the highest increase in search due to the Bey tour, increasing by a whopping 193% in Philadelphia and 178% in New York City, while hair stylists saw a search increase of 71% in Philly and 61% in NYC. Another big jump? Searches for arts and crafts (up by 75%) and fabric stores (up by 21%). The result of all of these searches was definitely seen in the crowds; the Renaissance Tour has become its very own fashion moment.
Given that Bey’s concert in Sweden also single-handedly impacted the Nordic nation’s inflation rate earlier this year, none of this should be too shocking. The tour has also translated notably to increased searches for minority-owned businesses. Here’s the data broken down by city:
Philadelphia:
Black-owned: Beauty and spas +14%, food +4%
Women-owned: Beauty and spas +13%, shopping +21%
LGBTQ+-owned: Shopping +194%
New York City:
Black-owned: Beauty and spas +5%
Women-owned: Shopping +10%, beauty and spas +7%, hotels and travel +5%, food +4%
LGBTQ+-owned: Beauty and spas +7%
Chicago:
Black-owned: Beauty and spas + 12%, hotels and travel +31%, food +2%
Women-owned: Hotels and travel +44%, food +8%, shopping +2%
LGBTQ+-owned: Nightlife +2%, restaurants +5%
So, if you’re still on the fence about whether or not you should try to attend one of the next Renaissance Tour stops, remember: it’ll be good for the economy.
