World Cup 2026 Tourism: Forecasts vs Final Results

From forecast to final whistle

The 2026 FIFA World Cup ran from 11 June to 19 July 2026 across 16 stadiums: 11 in the United States, three in Mexico and two in Canada. It was the first edition with 48 teams and 104 matches, and the first shared by three countries. The match schedule and venues are covered in our guide to the 2026 World Cup and in our breakdown of matches by city and country.

Most of the data needed to test the tourism forecasts have now been published: attendance, monthly arrivals from all three hosts, hotel data, card spending and the first host city studies. This report sets projections and outcomes side by side.

The forecast scorecard: what was promised and what arrived

The forecasts came from several sources with very different methods. The most cited were a FIFA and World Trade Organization study prepared by OpenEconomics in April 2025, which put the contribution to global GDP at up to 40.9 billion dollars, 824,000 full-time equivalent jobs worldwide and 17.2 billion dollars of US GDP, and a Tourism Economics briefing from November 2025 that projected 1.24 million international visitors to the US. These were model results and cannot all be checked.

The chart shows four cases where the same scope was measured before and after the event.

Close at city level, lower for hotels: New York and New Jersey beat their forecast by 6 percent, while extra hotel room revenue came in about a quarter below the national projection.

The pattern is consistent: measures tied to the event itself, such as crowds and local spending, met expectations, while measures that needed extra long-haul visitors, such as overseas arrivals and hotel occupancy, fell short. The money the hosts spent to stage the event is covered separately in our analysis of World Cup investment spending.

Stadium crowds: the one forecast that was beaten

FIFA reported a total attendance of 6,810,966 after the final in New York New Jersey on 19 July 2026, an average of 65,490 per match. Stadiums were 99.7 percent full across the 16 venues. That is nearly double the 1994 record of about 3.59 million. FIFA also counted more than 9 million visits to its Fan Festivals, more than 4.5 million of them in Mexico.

Twice the old record: 40 extra matches and large NFL stadiums pushed attendance to 6.81 million.

Attendance is not the same as tourism. Tourism Economics assumed international fans would fill about 40 percent of seats and attend two matches each. FIFA has not published a breakdown of ticket holders by country of residence, so the international share of the 6.81 million remains unknown. Scoring records from the tournament are tracked in our data on goals scored at every World Cup.

International arrivals to the US: no visible World Cup wave

The most direct test of the visitor forecasts is the monthly arrival count from the National Travel and Tourism Office (NTTO). In June 2026, when 57 of the 78 US matches were played, total international arrivals rose 2.7 percent to 5.4 million, but overseas arrivals, which exclude Canada and Mexico, fell 1.8 percent to 2,751,222. In July, total arrivals were flat at 6,248,242 (-0.1 percent) and overseas arrivals dropped 7.0 percent to about 3.09 million.

A brief easing, then a deeper fall: the overseas decline narrowed from 6.5 percent in May to 1.8 percent in June, then widened to 7.0 percent in July.

The overseas decline narrowed by almost five points between May and June, a small tournament effect on top of a weak trend. Tourism Economics had expected the event to add a 10 percent boost to June arrival growth and about 200,000 incremental visitors in July. Total arrivals grew 2.7 percent in June and fell in July, so the projected surge is not visible in the official count.

The longer view is just as clear. NTTO forecast in April 2026 that overseas arrivals would rise 1.6 percent for the full year, partly because of the World Cup. From January to July, overseas arrivals were about 18.3 million against 19.24 million a year earlier, a fall of nearly a million visitors. Broader trends in inbound and corporate trips are covered in our report on business travel in the US.

Which countries sent more visitors, and which sent fewer

The tournament changed who travelled more than how many. In June 2026 the United Kingdom sent 331,535 visitors to the US, up about 17 percent on June 2025, and tourism arrivals from Colombia rose about 23 percent. Colombia, whose team played in both the US and Canada, had one of the largest travelling followings. Tourism arrivals from Brazil and India, by contrast, fell.

Fans moved, others stayed home: Colombian and British tourism arrivals rose by around a fifth, while Brazil fell more than 10 percent.

July, the knockout month with only 21 US matches, looked weaker. British tourism arrivals were up less than 1 percent on July 2025, Brazilian arrivals were flat and Japanese arrivals fell about 4 percent. French tourism arrivals dropped to 122,144 from 164,222 a year earlier, a fall of about a quarter. The full list of qualified teams by confederation is in our data on World Cup teams by confederation.

Card data point the same way. Visa reported that cross-border transactions in host cities rose nearly 20 percent during the tournament, led by cardholders from Colombia, Puerto Rico, the United Kingdom, Argentina and Brazil.

Canada: a measurable lift from the countries that played there

Canada hosted 13 matches in Toronto and Vancouver, 10 of them in June. Statistics Canada is the only host statistics office that published a direct World Cup measure: arrivals from the countries whose teams played on Canadian soil. In June, arrivals from those 15 overseas countries rose 28.6 percent, about 33,600 more than in June 2025, with Panama, Australia and Germany accounting for 67.1 percent of the increase. In July, air arrivals from the five overseas countries that played in Canada rose 18.7 percent, or about 6,700.

A clear, targeted effect: visitors from team nations grew five to eight times faster than overseas arrivals as a whole.

The Statistics Canada consumer price index showed traveller accommodation prices up 10.1 percent year on year in June, compared with 2.5 percent in May, driven by Ontario (+19.4 percent) and British Columbia (+20.0 percent). Visa measured match-day spending peaks of 24.6 percent in Toronto, on the day Germany played there, and 12.7 percent in Vancouver.

Overseas arrivals as a whole rose a more modest 3.4 percent in June, to about 811,000. Before the event, BC Stats projected about 196,000 extra out-of-province overnight visitors to British Columbia during the tournament and 795 million Canadian dollars of provincial GDP in the event period. No post-event figure has yet been published to compare with that projection.

Mexico: one tournament, three very different visitor counts

Mexico hosted 13 matches in Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey, including the opening match. In June 2025 the tourism secretary, Josefina Rodriguez Zamora, gave the official estimate: 5.5 million tourists, more than 1 billion dollars in visitor spending and 24,000 direct jobs.

A counting problem, not just a shortfall: the official host city total is almost seven times the Deloitte estimate of tourists who came for the World Cup.

Sectur reported 7.8 million domestic and international travellers in the three host cities from 8 June to 19 July, of whom 3.3 million were overnight tourists and 4.5 million day visitors. It put the total economic impact at 65 billion pesos, of which 42.3 billion pesos, about 2.41 billion dollars, came from tourism. Hotel occupancy in host cities averaged 66 percent, up 13 percent on the same period of 2025, and average room rates rose 51.5 percent.

Deloitte, by contrast, estimated that about 494,000 tourists travelled because of the World Cup, 296,000 from within Mexico and 198,000 from abroad, against its earlier estimate of 836,000. It put the economic impact at 2.54 billion dollars, or 0.12 percent of GDP, 7 percent below its February calculation, and 101,255 temporary jobs. The gap is mainly definitional: Sectur counted everyone staying in host cities, Deloitte only trips caused by the event.

National statistics show little extra international demand. INEGI counted 8.19 million international travellers entering Mexico in June, 22 percent below the more than 10 million the tourism secretary had expected for the month. International tourists arriving by air, the group most likely to include long-haul fans, fell 5.3 percent in June and 5.7 percent in July.

US hotels: higher prices, fewer extra guests

In a survey of hoteliers in the 11 US host markets published at the end of April 2026, the American Hotel and Lodging Association (AHLA) found that 80 percent of respondents said bookings were tracking below their initial forecasts, and 65 to 70 percent said visa barriers and geopolitical concerns were holding back international demand. In Kansas City, 85 to 90 percent reported a below-expectation pace.

The results confirmed a rate-driven outcome. HVS, using CoStar data, compared each host market during its match weeks with a baseline built from 2025 performance and the trend in early 2026. Occupancy fell against that baseline in seven of the 11 markets, from 6.3 points in Seattle to 0.5 points in Boston. Only Los Angeles (+1.0), Dallas (+0.7) and San Francisco (+0.3) gained occupancy, and New York was essentially unchanged. Average daily rates rose in every market, from 8.31 dollars in Atlanta to 62.27 dollars in New York, so RevPAR rose everywhere.

Every market gained on price: Kansas City led with a 43 percent RevPAR gain despite a 4.6 point drop in occupancy.

HVS put total incremental rooms revenue at about 680 million dollars, roughly half of it in New York, where the final was played. Tourism Economics had projected close to 900 million dollars of extra room revenue across US markets, with June gains of 7 to 25 percent in host cities. The methods differ, but both point to gains built on rates, not guests.

One city, half the gain: New York, host of the final and eight matches, captured about half of all extra room revenue.

CoStar reported US occupancy of 69.6 percent in June 2026, up 1.6 percent, with ADR up 6.7 percent and RevPAR up 8.4 percent, the strongest rate gains since March 2023, helped by the World Cup. In July, New York posted the largest ADR rise of the top 25 markets, up 24 percent to 351.18 dollars, and on the Saturday night before the final it reached record single-day figures of 95.7 percent occupancy and 610.48 dollars ADR. Marriott reported US and Canada RevPAR up 5 percent in the second quarter, the highest quarterly increase for the region in 13 quarters.

Visitor spending: up in host cities, flat nationally

Before the event, a US Travel Association survey of more than 9,500 potential visitors in 10 markets found that international World Cup travellers expected to spend more than 5,000 dollars per person, about 1.7 times a typical international trip. That was an intention, not a projection, and national figures show no jump. NTTO recorded international visitor spending in the US of about 21.0 billion dollars in June, up 2.3 percent, and about 20.4 billion dollars in July, down nearly 1 percent.

Inside host cities the picture is brighter. Bank of America Institute card data show spending in host cities up about 5 percent over the tournament, with spending by non-local visitors up more than 17 percent and Kansas City recording the largest gain at 7 percent. Restaurants and bars were the clearest winners.

Strong local spending alongside flat national figures points to displacement: money shifted to host cities and match days, and some regular visitors stayed away. Total FIFA income from the tournament is a separate subject, covered in our report on FIFA revenue.

Air travel: busy routes, but fewer foreign passengers into the US

NTTO counts of non-US citizen air passengers arriving in the US were 4.4 million in June 2026, up 0.2 percent, and 5.1 million in July, down 3.0 percent. Air traffic between the US and Europe, counting both directions, fell 0.6 percent in June and 2.6 percent in July, and US to Mexico traffic fell 5.4 percent in July. In Canada, overseas residents arriving by air rose 5.8 percent in June and 6.8 percent in July, while air fares in the consumer price index were 9.6 percent higher in June.

Mexican host airports saw the clearest gains. Monterrey airport reported international traffic up 10.3 percent in June, with weekly growth peaking at 25.5 percent in the last full week of the month. Guadalajara handled 649,700 international passengers in July, 15.2 percent more than a year earlier, and its total traffic grew 13.2 percent. With national air tourist arrivals down, traffic appears to have shifted toward host cities rather than grown overall. Long-term trends in how travellers book are covered in our data on the online travel market.

Host city reports: the first post-event studies

By October 2026 only a few host cities had published post-event studies, all based on models. The most detailed came from New York and New Jersey, where Tourism Economics estimated a total impact of about 3.5 billion dollars, against its own 3.3 billion dollar projection of July 2025. Direct spending was about 1.9 billion dollars, including 653 million on lodging, 346 million on food and drink and 264 million on retail. More than 645,000 fans attended the eight matches, the study counted 626,300 non-local visitors and estimated 27,424 jobs supported.

Visit Seattle first forecast 929 million dollars, cut the estimate to 846 million because it expected fewer international visitors and less capital spending, and then reported 889 million dollars after the event, with 109 million dollars in state and local taxes. Yet CoStar data show Seattle hotel occupancy averaged 73.9 percent during its four weeks of matches, 6.9 points lower than a year earlier, before jumping to 90.5 percent in the first full week after the tournament. Venue details are in our guide to World Cup host cities and countries.

Why the visitor forecasts missed

The evidence points to four reasons why visitor numbers fell short while stadiums were full.

The size of the stadiums also mattered. With 104 matches, most of them in large NFL stadiums, the tournament could sell out without a matching rise in foreign visitors, because tickets were bought in large numbers by residents of the host countries. That is why attendance exceeded its forecast while arrivals did not. Public interest in the event in the United States is tracked in our data on American interest in the 2026 World Cup.

Global GDP figures such as the 40.9 billion dollars from FIFA and the WTO include indirect effects and spillovers and will not be checked against national accounts. Readers comparing host economies with past tournaments can find the cost side in our analysis of World Cup host costs and the earlier investment budgets.

Lessons and legacy: what to watch next

Tourism Economics described the likely result in an April 2026 brief as a temporary, sector-specific boost with minimal lasting economic impact, and the summer data support that reading. The longer-term case for hosting rests on image and repeat visits, which take years to measure. BC Stats, for example, projected 732,000 to 795,000 additional overnight visitors to British Columbia from 2027 to 2031, more than the 196,000 it expected during the event itself.

For the US, the next test is whether international arrivals recover in 2027 without a major event to support them. For Mexico, the gap between the Sectur and Deloitte counts shows the need for a common method for measuring event tourism. The players and teams who drew those crowds earned record payouts, set out in our report on World Cup prize money, while long-run trends in travel are covered in our overview of global tourism.

Questions about the tourism results of the 2026 World Cup