United States Entertainment Market Update - January 2024
The Writers Guild and Screen Actors Guild strikes concluded in November 2023 after many months of negotiations and halted production. Studios have a major backlog of content to create in 2024. We anticipate film and TV production requests to increase significantly. Hotels in states or countries that offer significant tax incentives for productions, such as Georgia, New Mexico, or most recently announced, the country of India, have a greater opportunity of capturing this business. It is important to note that hotels that offer the greatest flexibility with discounted entertainment rates, cancellation, deposit terms, increased commission (if applicable), and shortened entertainment friendly contracts will separate themselves from their competition.
In addition, press events to promote new releases were not attended by actors in many cases during the strike to show solidarity with the union. Now that the strikes have concluded, we anticipate press junkets and publicity requests to also resume more normal operations in 2024.
Music touring had a banner year in 2023 with big name artists and bands such as Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Madonna, and Coldplay on tour. Since 2023 was the busiest year on record for touring, we anticipate that there might be a slight slowdown in 2024, but not by much. There is still a strong appetite from consumers for live music, even with rising ticket prices. Consumers will even travel to specific destinations to follow their favorite artists on tour. Taylor Swift’s Eras tour made headlines this year highlighting the economic boost her concerts brought into different cities by drawing in so many of her fans. Entertainers make most of their income these days through merchandise sales on tour, which incentivizes them to tour regularly, or possibly extend tours to additional cities.
The entertainment team at Preferred Hotels & Resorts has relationships with key decision makers at the studios, TMCs that support the corporate entertainment & media accounts, as well as travel agencies such as GTC, Altour, and TAG, among others, which have the largest footprint with the music touring space. For any additional questions on how to further penetrate this market, or to discuss if this market segment would be a good fit for your hotel, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Contact for this market is Michelle Streeter based in Newport Beach CA, USA
