Dive Brief:
- U.S. hotels in and around 2026 FIFA World Cup host cities are seeing strong year-over-year increases in booking volumes and average daily room rates, according to new data from hotel distribution and revenue platform SiteMinder, shared with Hotel Dive.
- The Siteminder data was collected up to Dec. 12, a week after the Dec. 5 World Cup draw. It showed that for bookings centered around the July 19 World Cup final at Met Life Stadium in New Jersey, booking volumes for the week climbed 102.1% year over year, with ADR up 72.42% for the period.
- For stays related to the U.S. opening match against Paraguay on June 12 at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, booking volumes across nearby destinations were up by 80.5% year on year. ADR increased by more than 21.4% year over year for Los Angeles-area stays in the week leading into the game.
Dive Insight:
Overall, forward hotel booking volumes around several high-profile fixtures have more than doubled year over year, per the Siteminder report. The increase is particularly notable in light of an October report from hospitality data provider Lighthouse, which showed that hotel demand was slower than expected in the nine months before the games began.
At the time, Lighthouse said North America’s travel industry “should prepare for a sharp shift in booking figures and available inventory in the months ahead,” a prediction that appears to be playing out.
“With 48 teams from every continent, and 104 matches to be played in 16 cities across North America, this is the biggest and most global iteration yet of the World Cup,” Brian Reising, regional vice president of U.S. and Latin America at SiteMinder, said in the release. He added that as international travelers prepare to arrive at hotels in North American host cities and their surrounding areas, the hotels that are preparing early are capturing the most demand.
Hotels around Dallas are seeing even stronger early demand ahead of the England versus Croatia match at AT&T Stadium on June 17, according to Siteminder. Reservation volumes for those properties are growing 113.65% year on year and ADR increased by 5.6% for the monitored period.
According to FIFA, more than 1 million tickets were sold by the end of October, out of an estimated 7.1 million available tickets. The organization said on Wednesday that 20 million ticket requests were submitted during a random selection draw sales phase that began Dec. 11.
