Pokémon Go seems to be doing great for revenue of all kinds, including tourism. Last year alone, the game helped generate $249 million in tourism revenue across three cities.
This was all due to the game’s live events that Niantic held in those cities. Specifically Pokémon GO Fest 2019 in both Chicago and Dortmund, as well as Pokémon GO Safari Zone in Montréal.
All of those events brought in players of the game from around the globe. Those players spent money in those locations. And all three live events helped generate a sizable amount of revenue individually.
Pokémon GO Fest 2019 in Chicago being at the top. Just this particular live event helped the city gain an estimated $120 million from money spent by players in and around the city.
Meanwhile, the Dortmund event generated an estimated $56 million and the Montréal event generated an estimated $71 million.
Pokémon GO tourism revenue stands to increase in 2020
Niantic helped make a lot of money for the cities where it held live events last year. And it stands a good chance to increase those revenues in 2020. Though the events will be held in different cities this time.
In 2019, Niantic made $894 million from the game, which has been its most lucrative year since the game launched. This big increase in popularity with active players is a good sign that things will continue thanks to exciting upcoming features like a ranked PvP system.
And with players being excited to continue playing, upcoming live events for 2020 are likely to see a huge amount of players attend.
In the first half of the year, Niantic is having four different live Pokémon GO events, starting with the Taiwan Lantern Festival in Taichung on February 6. After that, Pokémon GO Safari Zone will be headed to St. Louis on March 27.
Then to Liverpool on April 17, and finally to Philadelphia on May 8.
There will be live events for other games
Pokémon GO is by far Niantic’s most popular game, and it shows now signs of slowing down.
The company does do live events for other games though, which also help to generate tourism revenue in the cities where they take place. For example, the very first Harry Potter: Wizards Unite Fan Festival happened in Indiana last year, and the second will be taking place later this year.
There will also be numerous Ingress events taking place throughout the first half of the year as well. Headed to cities around the globe including the US, New Zealand, Australia, Thailand, Japan and more.