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Article · April 15, 2026 · Rodolphe Lenoir
The column of Rodolphe Lenoir, co-founder of IMPACT CONSULTANTS
Challenged by the economy of time - streaming, gaming -, tourism is reinventing itself around experience. Concerts, parks and events are becoming engines of travel.
Just as the Gulf crisis dampened hopes of a positive year for tourism, with figures in the red and anxiety setting in, the announcement of Céline Dion’s concerts brings a welcome breath of fresh air to the industry. After the Taylor Swift effect in 2024, the economic spin-off is estimated at €1 billion, mostly for tourism and leisure players.
“My first competitor is Netflix,” said David Garcia, former CEO of PortAventura World. That single sentence says something essential: leisure travel no longer competes only with other destinations, but with every way of filling free time - the ones that are instant, infinite, personalised and logistics-free. The battle is no longer only about the wallet; it is about a scarcer asset: available time.
Two signals stand out. Free time exists, but it is already taken: in the US, the American Time Use Survey measured 5.1 hours a day of “leisure and sports” in 2024, of which 2.6 hours of television. And streaming has become the default reflex: 40.3% of total TV usage in June 2024 according to Nielsen, 46% a year later. Gaming absorbs time in the same way, with a global market estimated at $187.7bn in 2024 by Newzoo. Attention is already allocated: travel does not land in an empty space, it has to dislodge powerful habits.
Why travel when the best of entertainment is one click away? Because some needs are poorly served by a screen:
That is exactly what leisure travel sells: an experience that is hard to substitute. Travel is moving towards an entertainment model, while entertainment moves towards a destination model. After a sharp decline driven by streaming, the music market bounced back thanks to concerts, carried by Gen Y and Z: the market has doubled in 20 years and live now accounts for 60% of the music industry’s revenue.
The most revealing shift is happening in parks: they no longer aim only to maximise day-trip attendance, but to extend length of stay, increase spend per visitor and turn an attraction into a destination. At Disney, the appointment of Josh D’Amaro - a parks man - to lead the Experiences division marks a turning point: tourism becomes the group’s priority growth engine. PortAventura World continues its move to destination status with four new hotels in three years. The TEA/AECOM Theme Index shows the EMEA Top 20 parks exceeding pre-pandemic levels for the first time - 66.2 million visitors in 2023 versus 64.5 million in 2019 - while raising per-capita spending.
What changes is the economics of the model: you no longer sell a ticket but a stay; no longer an itinerary but a promise; no longer an attraction but a universe - hotels, food and beverage, retail, premium experiences, seasonal events. It is, in essence, a direct answer to Netflix: if the experience outside is stronger than the one inside, logistics become acceptable again.
If parks are becoming resorts, events are becoming a mobility engine. Live Nation calls 2024 live music’s biggest year yet, with record revenue above $23.1bn and 151 million fans connected to some 54,000 events. Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour is estimated at $2.2bn for more than 10 million fans across 149 shows. What matters for travel is not ticketing: it is the peripheral economy - transport, hotels, food, retail. The US Federal Reserve itself noted, in its July 2023 Beige Book, Philadelphia’s best month of hotel revenue since the pandemic, “largely” thanks to the Taylor Swift concerts.
Leisure travel is recomposing around a stack of value layers:
This is no longer a simple stay, it is an experience chain. The “Disney bubble” is the perfect illustration: by controlling every link, from the airport transfer to the skip-the-line pass, the operator maximises both revenue and perceived value - the customer accepts a premium for the complete absence of friction. And this chain compresses time: a concert or a resort weekend is consumed on a fixed date. That constraint creates value - scarcity, urgency, willingness to pay.
Leisure is no longer a side dish of travel: it is becoming its engine. Because competition is no longer between destinations but between formats of free time, and because the next decade of travel will be won less by adding supply than by orchestrating experiences. Our main advice: don’t let the leisure economy happen to you - steer it.
A column by Rodolphe Lenoir - co-founder of IMPACT CONSULTANTS. Published in TourMaG on April 15, 2026.
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