Taylor Swift held international concerts in several neighboring countries such as Singapore and Australia, but not Indonesia. The government responded by issuing the Indonesia Tourism Fund. The Eras Tour concerts were held by Taylor Swift in several countries. In contrast to Coldplay’s concert which stopped in several countries in Southeast Asia, Swift’s concert this year only stopped in Singapore.
International concerts are said to have a massive economic impact, including Taylor Swift’s concerts. How could it not be, Swift is known to have loyal fans spread across many countries. His concerts in several countries that have been held are also often attended by audiences from various other countries.
Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin accused the Singapore government of taking special steps towards the organizers of The Eras Tour. He accused Singapore of offering 2-3 million USD or around IDR 31 billion – IDR 46 billion to get exclusivity for Swift’s concert in the Southeast Asia region, which was only held in Singapore.
Apart from that, the Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy, Sandiaga Salahuddin Uno spoke to Bloomberg Television regarding this matter. He uploaded snippets of the conversation to his Instagram account @sandiuno.
“We need several incentives first, we need what the Singapore government and the Australian government did, namely bringing in Taylor Swift. We need ‘Swiftnomics’ (referring to the economy resulting from the impact of Taylor Swift’s concert) in Indonesian tourism,” he said.
Sandiaga Uno also thinks that this needs to be used as momentum for cooperation with ASEAN countries. The thing is, according to him, big concerts like The Eras Tour have really tough competition to steal Taylor Swift’s heart.
Sandiaga Uno also said that the Singapore government was willing to pay a high price for six days of Taylor Swift concerts. No joke, the Singapore government has the capital to carry out Swiftonomics which has a huge impact on the country. In fact, if you calculate it, Singapore could get revenue of USD 600 million or more than IDR 9.3 trillion for the six days of Taylor Swift’s concert there.
Based on this, the Indonesia Tourism Fund was also launched by Sandiaga to be able to attract various international events.
“And I’m sure we will start with the Indonesia Tourism Fund. It is hoped that with this tourism fund we can bid for good events in the coming years. Not only music, but also sporting events, we need to present good cultural events in Indonesia to attract good quality tourists to visit Indonesia, stay longer and have an impact, with more dollars spent into the local economy,” he explained.
He explained in his Instagram post that Indonesia not being chosen to host The Eras Tour concert was a lesson in itself. Then IDR 2 trillion will be disbursed into tourism funds this year.
“This year the government will disburse 2 trillion Rupiah through special tourism funds or the Indonesia Tourism Fund (ITF). These funds will be used to organize local and international events, with the hope of increasing the number of tourists so that they can have a wider job creation impact again,” he wrote.
February 22, 2024, detikTravel & detikPop
(https://www.detik.com/pop/music/d-7207228/taylor-swift-dimonopoli-sandiaga-uno-ajak-negara-asean-kolaborasi)
(https://travel.detik.com/travel-news/d-7206886/taylor-swift-tak-mampir-pemerintah-sodorkan-tourism-fund-rp-2-triliun)