The World Cup Filled Stadiums. Hotel Rooms Were A Different Story

The biggest World Cup in history packed stadiums across North America and shattered attendance records.

It just wasn’t the hotel bonanza many in the hospitality industry had expected.

Hotels pushed room rates sharply higher around marquee matches, fueling strong gains in revenue per available room.

Yet, many fans booked at the last minute, stayed only a night or two and timed their trips around individual matches. At the same time, convention and business travelers largely avoided host markets, blunting what many hotel executives expected to be one of the industry’s biggest tourism booms in years.

“Great performance overall,” Driftwood Capital Senior Vice President of Portfolio Asset Management Daniel Katz said. “Definitely didn’t meet expectations.”

Bisnow/created with ChatGPT

The uneven performance contrasted with years of lofty promises surrounding the first 48-team World Cup, which FIFA and tourism officials touted as an unprecedented economic engine for host cities. The tournament drew more than 6.8 million fans, the highest attendance in World Cup history.

The strongest hotel performance came around the tournament’s marquee matchups. Revenue per available room climbed more than 40%, and average daily rates jumped nearly 35% on match days during the Round of 16 and quarterfinals, according to CoStar News.

On days without matches, occupancy fell nearly 4%. 

Driftwood Capital hotels in cities hosting marquee matches featuring teams like Argentina, Portugal and Colombia posted average daily rate growth of 20% or more year-over-year, Katz said.

But many fans stayed only a night or two instead of the three or four nights operators had projected.

Performance varied sharply by host city, with markets hosting the tournament’s biggest draws posting the strongest gains.

The World Cup was a success for hotels in host cities, but it wasn’t the equivalent of the “104 Super Bowls” FIFA President Gianni Infantino had promised, according to Suraj Bhakta, CEO of hospitality brokerage NewGen Advisory.

Short-term rentals followed the same pattern. Rental rates jumped 60% year-over-year for Mexico’s match against England in Mexico City and Argentina’s quarterfinal against Switzerland in Kansas City, according to AirDNA.

Rates also climbed 43% around the final in Jersey City and 32% during the England-Argentina semifinal in Atlanta.

New York’s hotel market struggled to push rates through much of the tournament before demand surged around the final.

The Hotel Association of New York City had projected $300M in incremental revenue based on FIFA’s forecast of 1.2 million visitors, but the city was tracking well below that figure until the final brought a high-demand matchup, association President and CEO Vijay Dandapani said.

Dandapani expects the city to reach the $300M projection once the final days of tournament data are counted.

A World Cup 2026 FIFA Fan Festival in Los Angeles

Not every host city shared equally in the boom. Atlanta and Seattle were the only host markets with matches to post negative RevPAR — both down about 10% in the week ending July 11 as nonmatch days weighed on performance, according to CoStar.

Miami and Kansas City led all host markets, with RevPAR up 38% and 35%, respectively. Kansas City was one of the tournament’s biggest winners, with the July 11 Argentina-Switzerland quarterfinal generating about $560K in hotel revenue and pushing average daily rates to a record $270, according to KCTV5.

Seattle’s hotels set a single-day revenue record of more than $7.9M during the tournament, but overall occupancy still fell below normal summer levels as convention and business travelers stayed away, Visit Seattle Chief Business Officer Kelly Saling said.

“We did see overall occupancy for the tournament dip below what we’d typically see in June and July, as convention business and other key segments were largely displaced by soccer fans,” Saling told Bisnow.

Business travel demand in luxury and upper-upscale hotels dropped a combined 54% year-over-year in Seattle and Atlanta, according to CoStar, underscoring how soccer fans often displaced — rather than supplemented — traditional demand.

“It did really well for what it was, and we were fortunate to be able to get as many of the games as possible,” Bhakta said.