May 6 – The receipts are starting to land on this World Cup, and they tell a clear and uncomfortable story.
Nearly 80% of hotel operators across nine of the 11 US host cities report bookings “running well behind early projections,” according to the latest American Hotel & Lodging Association outlook published this week.
FIFA has cancelled or released around 70% of its room blocks, flooding inventory back into local markets and triggering cancellations of up to 95% of contracted rooms in some cities. Hotels that poured millions into fan zones, multilingual staff, upgraded security and transportation tie-ins have paused further World Cup-specific spending entirely.
The international visitor, the one this whole tournament was supposed to attract, is the one not showing up.
Visa delays, concerns about treatment by immigration officials, soaring airfares, a strong dollar in an already expensive country and increasing geopolitical tensions are the principle reasons travellers to the US are reticent to embrace this World Cup in person.
Those visitors were projected to spend an average of $5,048 each, 1.7 times more than typical overseas tourists. One-third were planning multi-city stays longer than two weeks. The flip side of this is that American fans are booking, but they cannot fill the gap.
The data underlying the World Cup hospitality business has become brutal.
More than 70% of operators in San Francisco, Seattle, Philadelphia, and Boston report booking pace below expectations. Over 60% say the same in Los Angeles, New York, Houston, and Dallas. Even Miami and Atlanta, the cities with the rosiest outlooks, sit at around 50% reporting underperformance.
This is what World Cup greed looks like in real time. FIFA priced the tournament to extract maximum value from international fans, and those fans took one look at $2,730 group-stage tickets, US visa headaches and a hostile entry environment and decided to stay home.
Domestically American civil rights groups have issued travel advisories, tailgating was banned, then unbanned, while transit fares were quadrupled in Boston and New Jersey. ICE agents have been confirmed as a “key part” in the security apparatus sparking fears that matches will be viewed as an opportunity for them to boost their deportation numbers. The SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles is not even selling out for the US team’s home opener.
FIFA built this for whales but not even the whales are arriving in pods in the US.
The knockout rounds may rescue some of the horror story for those cities and partners who bought into FIFA’s sales pitch. However, most of the damage is already done and with a month to go to kick-off it is too late to reverse as Trump’s war against Iran keeps spiralling the price of airline fuel and hence tickets upwards and out of reach.
Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]