Tourism officials who once said that 500,000 guests would be descending upon Houston for the FIFA World Cup next month are now acknowledging that hotel demand is not as high as they’d projected due to concerns about high ticket prices and international travel barriers.
When Houston was awarded host city status in 2022, Donald Trump wasn’t the president and the United States wasn’t at war with Iran, one of the teams playing in the World Cup. Four years ago, undocumented immigrants were being detained and deported primarily for illegally crossing the border, not during traffic stops in metropolitan cities.
Houston, Harris County and the FIFA World Cup Houston Host Committee have celebrated the opportunity to show off the city, claiming hundreds of thousands of guests will pass through during the 39-day event and a $1.5 billion economic impact will be realized, primarily affecting the local hospitality industry.
However, the American Hotel & Lodging Association issued a report last month, finding that anticipated demand has “not translated into strong hotel bookings” and that domestic travelers are outpacing international visitors.
Soccer fans from Iran, Haiti, the Ivory Coast and Senegal can’t get visas to come to America because of a travel ban imposed by the U.S. government. Rumors have spread that people from Latin American countries could be detained by immigration authorities, even though they’re legally allowed to travel with a valid passport and a U.S. visitor visa.
And while some Americans may be willing to splurge on an opportunity-of-a-lifetime trip to a World Cup match, a $3,000 ticket is the equivalent of three months’ wages for the average resident of Mexico or Colombia, according to an analysis conducted by hospitality job platform OysterLink.
Some ticket prices have risen to more than $10,000 for championship games, significantly more expensive than tickets sold during the 2022 and 2018 iterations of the tournament played in Qatar and Russia. Many Houstonians have said they plan to avoid NRG Stadium, temporarily rebranded Houston Stadium for the World Cup, with another name change back to Reliant Stadium planned for August. They’ll instead watch the games at home, at a local sports bar, or at the month-long free Fan Festival in East Downtown.
University of Houston economics professor Steven Craig said economic impact is measured, in simple terms, by unique dollars being circulated locally; for example, when a visitor spends money in a restaurant and the chef and waiters then spend the dollars they earned from that visit. If fewer people come to Houston for the World Cup than originally anticipated, there’s less of an economic impact, but it won’t be devastating; it just means that there’s less leverage when trying to get buy-in to fund a new sports arena or similar upgrade, Craig said.
When there’s a Super Bowl in New Orleans, the football fans displace other tourists and the economic impact is “lower than it looks because they’re a big tourist destination,” the professor added, noting that Houston does not have that designation.
“Houston is not a big tourist destination,’ he said. “Our mountains just aren’t that great. The World Cup is a real international event and that would be unusual economic activity for us compared to deep tourist places. If international travel is less than we were hoping, the economic impact will be commensurately less than we were hoping.”
Craig studied Atlanta’s economic impact during the 1996 Olympics and found that some international businesses relocated there after visiting for the sporting event. That’s a possibility in Houston post-World Cup, he said. There are also other benefits for people who live in Houston.
“We see the city paving a bunch of streets that needed to be paved desperately, so we don’t look as embarrassing as we otherwise would have,” Craig said. “To me, that economic impact is worth it, just because the city is performing in a way that it hasn’t over the last decade.”
The paved streets won’t do much to get “heads in beds” for the hotel industry, though. FIFA, the governing body for international soccer, recently released large blocks of unused rooms originally contracted for tournament staff, media and stakeholders in Houston and other cities. “As attendance numbers for FIFA staff and media became clearer, they released excess inventory, signaling softer-than-expected international demand across U.S. host cities,” the lodging association report states.
This added thousands of rooms back to the market, leaving hotels scrambling to rebook them, according to the report.
The first of seven matches in Houston kicks off on Sunday, June 14. Hundreds of hotel rooms are still available for that weekend, including a $135-per-night stay at LaQuinta in Channelview, $207-per-night rooms at the Aloft Houston Galleria, and a $256-per-night stay at Wyndham-Hobby Airport.
The hotel rates are not outrageous, but it may not be all about the money. Bob Heere, a professor of sports management at the University of North Texas, told the Texas Tribune that he’s had difficulty selling tickets to colleagues from the Netherlands for a VIP experience at one of the matches in Arlington. “People are not excited about the United States right now, nor are they excited about the prices,” Heere said.
Craig said he hasn’t bought tickets yet and doesn’t anticipate anyone will be giving them away. He added that there has been some concern in academic circles at UH and Rice University, which are both major research hubs, that an anti-American sentiment would prevent some from traveling.
“Houston is one of the cities in the country where immigration is most important to, so arrests and deportation are affecting our economy,” he said. “It’s not just the low-end workers; it’s the high-end workers with H-1B visas in the oil and petroleum business. We’re exposed to the international winds more than usual. When international visitors are talking to their friends, I’m sure they’re hearing about it. What they’re deciding to do, I don’t know, but I’ll say this is a really important dimension to Houston.”
Houston First, the city’s destination marketing and convention organization, has been heavily involved in promoting tourism ahead of the World Cup. A World Cup travel tracker” posted on the Houston First website shows that, as of mid-April, Houston’s hotel booking pace (rooms currently committed) is up from last year by 17 percent in June and 14 percent in July.
A Houston First spokesperson said in an email Tuesday that being a host city offers numerous intangible benefits.
“Our brand will be broadcast to viewers around the world, accelerating momentum, attracting attention, and opening doors in new markets that otherwise take years to create,” the spokesperson said. “There are also a number of legacy projects that the World Cup will leave behind that will continue to benefit our local community for years to come. This is a big net positive for us.”
But the lodging association reports that about 70 percent of Houston hoteliers who responded to its survey declared a booking pace below World Cup expectations, “though still broadly in line with a typical June or July, indicating limited incremental lift from the tournament.”
The short-term rental industry is also planning on a spike in bookings. A search for World Cup opening weekend on VRBO showed that only 11 percent of Houston properties were available, ranging in price from $120 per night to $404 per night for two guests. A similar search on Airbnb showed more than 1,000 Houston homes available on those dates with a similar price range for two guests.
At a May 11 media event at NRG, Houston First CEO Michael Heckman emphasized the intangible benefits of hosting an international event, noting it’s “a really big deal” to have thousands of people and international media visiting Houston and “beaming out” the destination to the world.
“We’ve been really focused on having a seamless experience for visitors while they’re here,” he said. “Our visitors typically really enjoy Houston. We hear it over and over again, whether it’s a leisure visitor, a business traveler, a convention-goer or a sports fan. Houston is the most welcoming and friendly big city in the United States, and we look forward to being able to put that on display again.”
Houston’s greatest asset is its people, Heckman said, and the marketing organization aims to make tourists feel like “they’re one of us.”
“Tourism, we believe, is the front door for economic development,” he said. “Nobody’s going to start a business, move a business or grow a business in a city they’ve never been to before. For some of the soccer media that will be here from around the world, for people who may have never had a reason to visit Houston before, they will be here in our city, and we want to turn those people into advocates and ambassadors for Houston.”
Reports that FIFA plans to pocket $11 billion from the global event while host cities would be lucky to break even after investing millions into street repairs, beautification efforts and stadium reconfigurations have not deterred the Houston Host Committee from its position that being center stage during the largest sporting event in the history is a good thing.
Chris Canetti, Houston Host Committee president, has touted the $1.5 billion economic impact figure, noting that the company he works for, the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority, is a nonprofit and never anticipated making any money off the World Cup, nor did the city of Houston
The value, Canetti says, is in tourism exposure, transit upgrades, neighborhood investment and legacy initiatives like the Freekicks program, green corridor, hospitality sustainability, and human trafficking training.
Craig says he believes that Houstonians are mildly interested but not super-enthusiastic about the World Cup.
“No one knows how crowded it’s going to be,” he said. “When you talk to thoughtful people, I think they’re worried about our perception internationally. It’s interesting to have the World Cup here. It’s increasing our visibility. Houston is a great place to visit. Everyone will be nice to the visitors. The people who come — if they can get here — will have a good time.”
