Last year, AEG surveyed 3,000 UK adults and more than a third said they had booked overnight accommodation to attend a gig, while 19% said they had travelled internationally for concerts or festivals. One in 10 people buying tickets for events at the O2 is from overseas, says AEG.
Many people are flying in from abroad to see Styles perform in London – in part, because of the limited locations of his tour, but also because of varied pricing between countries.
MacKenzie Dunaway Gardner, 31, from Texas, tried to get tickets for Styles’ shows in New York City, but says the prices were “really really outrageous”.
Instead, she’s heading to London for eight of Styles’ shows with friends from Pennsylvania and Georgia.
Getting tickets to the Wembley shows was a “100% no-brainer” for her, she says.
MacKenzie acknowledges it will cost her thousands of dollars in flights, accommodation and other costs to spend two weeks in London seeing Styles’ shows in the summer.
“It’s very expensive, and I’m very privileged,” she says. “I know so many people that aren’t going to be able to do it.”
Hotels.com told BBC News search interest in accommodation in London for the weeks of Styles’ tour had already spiked. Similarly, Airbnb said UK searches on its site for accommodation in Harrow, Wembley’s London borough, were up 7400% year-on-year, with a huge growth in searches for neighbouring boroughs, too. The average Airbnb price in London during the tour is £110, it added.