U.S. hotel performance surged in the first week of the FIFA World Cup, with demand reaching a new 2026 high of nearly 28 million rooms sold during the week of June 7-13.
The lift in demand pushed occupancy to 69.9%, the highest level of the year, while average daily rate (ADR) rose 4.9%, marking 15 consecutive weeks of rate growth. The result was weekly revenue per available room (RevPAR) of $120, the highest level since 2024 and a 7% increase year over year, as ADR growth continued to outpace room demand gains.
While ADR-driven growth remained the primary story, weekend hotel performance reasserted itself after a four-week stretch in which weekday gains had led. Weekend RevPAR increased 15.3%, driven by a 9.1% rise in ADR alongside a 6.2% increase in demand and a 4.1-percentage-point lift in occupancy. The shift aligned with the start of the World Cup, although performance gains extended well beyond host markets.
Much of the weekend’s volume growth occurred outside the 11 World Cup host markets. Excluding those markets, weekend hotel RevPAR across the rest of the country rose 13.6%, with 96 markets reporting double-digit growth. These non-host markets accounted for 97% of the increase in rooms sold, supported by a 7.2% gain in demand. In contrast, host markets recorded stronger top-line growth, with RevPAR up 23%, but that performance was almost entirely rate-driven. ADR in host markets increased 22.5%, while demand was relatively flat (+1.1%).
The World Cup began play in the U.S. on Friday, June 12, and through the week of June 7-13, four matches were held across Boston, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco. Early results from these markets reinforce expectations that event-driven compression will favor ADR over hotel demand. Combined, these four markets posted a 31.9% increase in weekend RevPAR, driven by a 26.9% gain in ADR. Demand rose just 4.8%, with San Francisco the only market to report double-digit growth (+17%).
Across this initial sample, hotel performance gains were highly concentrated around match timing, with the largest increases occurring on the day prior to and the day of each match. San Francisco posted the strongest weekend results, with RevPAR up 44.4% for the match between Qatar and Switzerland. The market reached $181 in RevPAR and 78.2% occupancy, both sizable increases year over year, but well below peak compression levels seen ahead of the Super Bowl earlier this year, when RevPAR reached $529 and occupancy climbed to 86.7%.
New York recorded the second-largest increase among host markets, with weekend RevPAR rising 36.8% as ADR reached $395 and hotel occupancy climbed to 87.5%. Despite the World Cup lift, weekend performance trailed weekday levels, as the market also benefited from the NBA Finals and multiple business conferences earlier in the week.
Outside of the World Cup, Chicago and Washington, D.C., posted some of the largest performance gains of the week. Chicago recorded its second consecutive weekend near 93% occupancy, driven by overlapping business, leisure and event demand, which pushed RevPAR up 37.4%. In Washington, D.C., a similar convergence of events, including the lead-up to the UFC Freedom 250 event, supported strong weekend performance.
Early World Cup results point to a clear pattern of ADR-led growth, with hotel demand gains concentrated in non-host markets and around specific event windows. As more matches are played and host markets rotate, the extent to which demand broadens — and whether ADR continues to outpace occupancy gains — will be key to sustaining the current pace of RevPAR growth. While we continue to assert that the World Cup will be an ADR-led event, our forward-booking data shows that markets with early matches had a surge in last-minute bookings. As World Cup fever gets higher, we could be surprised on the demand side as well.
Global RevPAR flat as multiple countries down
Based on comparable hotels and on a constant USD basis, excluding the U.S., global hotel RevPAR was flat during the week (-0.3%) on falling occupancy (-0.9 percentage points) and a slight increase in ADR (+0.9%). Like last week, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries were responsible for the decrease as global RevPAR without them was up 3.2% on rising ADR.
Besides the GCC decline, several other large hotel markets were also down including Canada, France, Mexico, and the U.K. Australia and China were flat. Countries seeing RevPAR advance included the Caribbean, Germany, India, Japan and Spain.
Germany alone was responsible for more than 130 basis points of the global RevPAR increase, excluding GCC. Its RevPAR rose by 34.6% with nearly all markets, except three, reporting double-digit growth. Stuttgart led the country with 89.8% increase on nearly equal gains in occupancy and ADR. That was true for the country, too.
Mexico’s RevPAR continued to retreat, falling 10.1% this week as key tourist markets continued to decline with Cancun down 29.6%. However, Mexico City and Monterrey saw RevPAR increase due to World Cup matches. RevPAR in Mexico City grew by 44.3% during the week with the measure up by more than 115% on Wednesday and Thursday. As expected, World Cup induced RevPAR was led by ADR as occupancy was flat to down.
Cole Martin is Analytics and Insights Specialist at STR and Isaac Collazo is senior director of analytics at STR.