Social media posts could lead one to believe that the 2026 FIFA World Cup was an overwhelming success for the United States, one of three host countries for the biggest iteration of the tournament in its history.
International tourists shared their thrilling newfound experiences at American superstore staples such as Walmart and Buc-ee’s and acquired tastebuds that yearned for ranch dressing. Those who decided to make the trip to the States seemingly enjoyed their stay and exposure to cultural touchpoints that make the U.S. a unique entity and tourist destination.
The data, however, points to flat year-over-year arrivals from international travelers during the tournament, a confounding fact given the global appeal of an event such as this one.
"You could argue ... that isn't this the perfect storm for international inbound? Isn't this when people really want to come?" said Jan Freitag, national director of hospitality analytics at CoStar Group.
Headwinds and hurdles surrounding travel to the U.S. potentially proved too bountiful to overcome this summer for the World Cup. Now, hoteliers and analysts alike question the strength of future of international inbound travel to the U.S. with the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics and more major sporting events on the horizon.
Hurdles in place
Joe Imbrogno, general manager of the Reverb by Hard Rock Downtown Atlanta, said his property didn’t experience a sizable surge in bookings from international travelers during the tournament. Those travelers accounted for between 10% to 15% of bookings related to the World Cup at his property, which is around the same amount it typically sees.
“From an international perspective, we didn’t really see a big impact,” he said. “Initially, the stay pattern was supposed to be people traveling internationally, staying for a long period of time and traveling from a base city — presumably Atlanta, since there [were] eight matches here, would be one of those, and Dallas probably another — which never happened.”
Imbrogno's hotel was expecting to see 30-day stays at a high rate, primarily driven by international travelers using the market as a base hub.
"What we ended up seeing was none of that," he said.
The actual result was high hotel demand in the day prior to a match and the day of a match before a stark decline in the immediate aftermath.
"We'd get really busy and then empty," Imbrogno said.
Rosario Bianchi, general manager of the AC Hotel by Marriott Downtown New York, said there’s recently been a softening in international demand from important feeder markets such as Canada and China. The level of international inbound demand New York City saw for the World Cup was lower than expected before the tournament.
Bianchi attributes some of this to complications of international tourists obtaining visas and other further unpredictability.
“We did get some folks that normally would visit, [but] there could have been some hurdles there,” he said.
Some of those hurdles include the current political landscape in the U.S. deterring potential travelers from making the trek.
The Iran war is largely unpopular among Americans — just 29% approve of President Donald Trump’s conduct in overseeing the war, according to a recent Washington Post-Ipsos poll — and the conflict is having widespread global effects on the supply chain. The constraints on the Strait of Hormuz have spiked oil prices, thus increasing the costs of travel.
Trump administration immigration policies are similarly unpopular — 40% of Americans approve to 59% disapprove. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers continue to raid cities and make headlines, including two instances of killings over the past two weeks.
Four countries that participated in the World Cup are on the Trump administration's travel ban list. The Department of State paused immigrant visa issuances to applicants from 75 additional countries — including Brazil, Colombia and Egypt. Those who had purchased a ticket to a match could have scheduled an interview for a B1/B2 visitor visa through the FIFA Priority Appointment Scheduling System.
"The current policies of our government have made things very complicated," Imbrogno said. "People being detained at the airport or being denied visas — that obviously is a problem. I think those things also created a lot of fear, and so that probably deterred people."
There were hopes that these hurdles wouldn’t stand in the way of an event such as the World Cup, which involves 48 countries represented from around the globe.
The result, however, was underwhelming international inbound demand numbers.
According to International Trade Administration data, international air passenger arrivals to the U.S. increased just 0.2% year over year in June. For further context, the same metric decreased 6.6% year over year from June 2024 to June 2025.
Travel from Europe was down 1.2% annually in June after being down 2.8% in the month in 2025.
There’s a couple of ways to read the near-flat change in overall international inbound travel in June, Freitag said. The glass half-full approach is that June was only the second month since January 2025 to have a positive increase in international air passenger arrivals. Despite the largely underwhelming results for an event of this stature, it’s building a foundation for future travel to the U.S.
"The very positive read of this is this builds brand for the future, and eventually people are going to come back, and they're going to say, 'Oh, this was so fun,'" Freitag said.
For some World Cup fans, this could be the case.
"The good news is that for people that didn't have those issues and weren't afraid to take the trek, everything that I hear is that they've had an amazing time," Imbrogno said. "From what I see anecdotally online, I haven't heard of any negative experiences."
The glass half-empty take is if an event such as the World Cup can’t turn the numbers around, what will?
"That the European numbers are not up year over year when they were already down a year ago — I think that's just not great," Freitag said.
Taking notes for future events
There are three lessons to take away from the World Cup for hoteliers, Freitag said. First, hotel performance from these events is driven by rates, not occupancy. Second, booking patterns among eventgoers remained shortened and corporate group demand stayed away from host markets around match days.
"Even though people knew this was coming — the match pairings in the group stage were announced six months ago — we looked at our forward booking data, and it was lower than it was a year ago," he said.
Lastly, for the World Cup specifically, it was more like 104 separate events rather than one five-week event.
"There are ... peaks around the match days and then valleys again," Freitag said, referring to the hotel demand spikes.
All hope is not lost for the future of U.S. international inbound travel. Bianchi said while visa roadblocks and high fuel prices will continue to affect tourism numbers, the World Cup could still serve as a caveat for future trips.
"I want to say yes, it's definitely a springboard, and I think this definitely will help with future events, and hopefully we'll get people that actually came to experience the event to actually come visit another time," he said.
Another measuring stick for U.S. hoteliers is only two years away in the form of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
"A good test will be Los Angeles because I think that they handle these kind of events [well], and an international event would be really good to see how they do in '28," Bianchi said.
There are two messages international travelers are currently receiving, Imbrogno said. One alludes to the U.S. being unwelcoming and one alludes to the U.S. being an amazing experience. How those messages evolve could determine the future of international inbound travel across the country.
"People are deciding which messages they want to listen to," he said. "Over time, hopefully the first set of messaging kind of normalizes and takes care of itself and what people remember are all the good things, and longer term, that that will certainly encourage additional international visitation. I think at the moment, probably not."