And then there were two.
New York City and Miami will field the two remaining 2026 FIFA World Cup matches with 102 final whistles already blown.
Lionel Messi’s Argentina takes on Lamine Yamal’s Spain in the finals in East Rutherford, New Jersey, on July 19. Hoteliers in South Florida, however, are more interested in the third-place match being held in Miami on July 18 between England and France.
The biggest World Cup in terms of teams competing and total matches has been a memorable one, for soccer fans and hoteliers alike.
North America hosted the tournament for the first time since 1994 and split the hosting duties between 16 markets: 11 in the U.S., three in Mexico and two in Canada.
Hoteliers initially had sky-high expectations for what the global tournament could mean for hotel performance. Those expectations see-sawed in the months leading up to its start, with most settling on the hopes of better performance on an annual basis but not at the level they once anticipated.
Regardless of the final outcome, the event served as a testing ground for the U.S. as it prepares to host several other major sporting competitions over the next decade, including the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, 2031 FIFA Women’s World Cup and 2034 Salt Lake City Olympics.
Checking in with the data
Prior to the start of the World Cup, Didio Pequeno, director of hospitality market analytics, Northeast and Midwestern U.S. for CoStar Group, said the hotel impact from the tournament would likely fall between the initial high expectations and the growing pessimism in the months leading up to it.
He said there was too much focus on purported dips in occupancy and not enough attention being drawn toward massive jumps in rate.
"When I talk to people, whether that be general managers or revenue managers around the country, I'm getting a lot of mixed signals, but I think the prevailing thought is that yes, the World Cup will still boost performance through the summer," he said. "Performance is going to vary market by market, some will perform better than others, of course, but it's not really about demand, it's more so about markets being able to drive rate."
Midway through the tournament, Pequeno said performance was playing out as expected.
Only three of the 11 U.S. host markets saw occupancy increase during the first two weeks of the tournament: San Francisco, Dallas and Los Angeles. Every U.S. host market saw increases in average daily rate of at least 14% and revenue per available of at least 12%.
San Francisco was the strongest performing market during this timeframe, with RevPAR up 55%, ADR up 32% and occupancy up 17% year over year.
"A key factor behind this outperformance is the city’s hosting of big conferences, such as the Databricks Data + AI Summit 2026, which was held from June 15 to June 18 and drew over 30,000 attendees. In addition, the city had an easy year-over-year comparison, as hotel performance in the prior year was relatively weak. San Francisco had positive momentum heading into the tournament, bolstered by the region’s strong year-to-date recovery," Pequeno wrote.
In the week of June 21-27, U.S. RevPAR and ADR hit all-time highs of $129 and $178.82, respectively, STR's Cole Martin and Isaac Collazo wrote. This success extended into the knockout stage. For the week of June 28 to July 4, performance continued to improve.
"World Cup markets posted a 23% increase in RevPAR despite hosting nearly 50% fewer matches than the previous week, highlighting the continued impact of the tournament as it moved into the knockout stage," Martin and Collazo wrote.
CNBC reports that "travel bookings have accelerated as the field of competitors narrows and fans converge from around the world to see the high-stakes matches." Spain defeated France in Dallas on Tuesday while Argentina eliminated England Wednesday in Atlanta.
East Rutherford will host the World Cup final on July 19. The impact on the New York City/New Jersey region is expected to be likened to another major sporting event in the U.S.: the Super Bowl.
"You have reports of people paying thousands of dollars to attend matches, travel, hotels and all of that," Pequeno said. "Personally, I think New York is most likely going to absolutely crush it for the final."
Market-level anecdotes
Reporting from local news outlets reveals the economic and hotel impact in host markets has varied.
The economic impact in Arlington, Texas — home of the NFL's Dallas Cowboys — has ranged from $18 million to $24 million per match, Brent DeRaad, president of the Arlington Convention & Visitors Bureau told CBS News Texas. Arlington Mayor Jim Ross said hotel revenue in June was a record $31 million, easily surpassing the previous high for a month of $23 million.
The Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau said hotel revenue increased more than 50% year over year on the six match days in the city. ADR was up 48% to an average of $367. The Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau said room nights booked were down year over year during the World Cup, but overall hotel revenue jumped 15%.
Andrea O'Hara, executive director of the Hotel and Lodging Association of Greater Kansas City, said the hotels closest to fan fest, the stadium and base camp team facilities are the ones performing well in the city, but hotels in the suburbs are falling behind expectations.
South Florida hotels are enjoying a sizeable boost in RevPAR, due in large part to rates pushing higher than in years past.
“The improvement in Miami hotels continues to be on the rate with a little bit from occupancy,” said Jan Freitag, national director, hospitality analytics at the CoStar Group, in an interview with the Miami Herald.
John Fitzpatrick, president and CEO of New York City-based owner and operator Fitzpatrick Hotel Group, told The City Reporter that revenue increased 15% over June last year, well below expectations.
“The World Cup brought business to the city and it helped us, but I was expecting a lot more,” he said. “It’s not the big hype everybody was talking up.”
The Hotel Association of New York said it’s expecting total hotel revenue for the city to increase by $100 million from the World Cup, a third of its $300 million estimate prior the start of the tournament.
In May, 65% of Los Angeles respondents to an American Hotel & Lodging Association report said hotel bookings were lower than a typical summer, the Los Angeles Times reports. There was late demand pickup in the city, though, which made up for some of the initial pessimism.
“Demand has picked up, consistent with a recent trend toward shorter booking windows for events of this caliber,” Rosanna Maietta, CEO of AHLA, said in a statement. “Unlike typical leisure travel, many travelers finalized plans and secured tickets closer to the start of the games.”
Houston First Corporation said hotel occupancy was down 2% in June compared to last year, but average daily rate rose 16%, consistent with the broader trend across the U.S., local ABC13 reports.
“When you have Super Bowl or Final Four, usually the day after they announce, you have no rooms to sell. In this, we were not even close to that,” Emre Ozsut, regional director of sales at The Lancaster Hotel in Houston, said.