(The Center Square) – Faced with fewer World Cup tourists than originally expected, Seattle hotel operators came up with a creative way to boost revenue.
Raise their rates.
“When a person is trying to attend the game, there is no flexibility on the date they need to attend a game,” said Michael Stathokostopoulos, a senior director of hospitality analytics at CoStar Group. “Hotels know that, so they can increase rates in order to capture that inflexible demand.”
New aggregate data from the CoStar Group, which tracks hotel financial metrics, show that hotels, on average, sold fewer rooms during the World Cup this June and July than they did on the same dates a year earlier.
Occupancy during the games averaged 60.6% to 85.4%, down 7% in June and 5.7% in July compared with 2025, the CoStar Group data shows.
But, according to CoStar, hotel operators raised rates on dates surrounding World Cup events by 23% in June and 15.76% in July.
During the World Cup, average rates ranged from $200 to $250 per night, but reached a high of $340.80 on June 20, the day the USA team played Australia.
Four of the six Seattle World Cup matches were played in June and the other two in early July. The CoStar Group data included the date before the game, game day, and the day after.
Seattle hotels were initially promised a massive tourism boom with near-100% sold-out occupancy rates after the city was one of 16 awarded the World Cup games by FIFA in late 2022.
FIFA officials promised an unprecedented economic boom to cities chosen for the games.
“We were delusional,” said Craig Schafer, owner of the 79-room Inn at the Market and the 123-room Hotel Andra in Seattle.
He said FIFA officials told hotels they needed to ensure they had room inventory for the rush of tourists.
Hotels responded, he said, not going after the conventions and meetings that normally supplemented tourism in June and July, the strongest months for hotels in Seattle.
When the FIFA promises started unraveling earlier this year, Schafer said it was too late to fill rooms with groups.
FIFA announced cancellation of room blocks at Seattle hotels in March and April due to a lack of demand for World Cup rooms.
The next month, Visit Seattle, the destination marketing organization for Seattle and King County, lowered its $929 million economic impact forecast for the World Cup by nearly nine percent.
Visit Seattle’s numbers were driven by a slump in international travelers-particularly a massive drop in Canadian visitors-due to geopolitical tensions, increased visa scrutiny by U.S. officials and tariff disputes initiated by the U.S. with other countries.
Schafer said Seattle’s largest big-box hotels likely suffered the most because they depend on convention business.
He said his two hotels had no FIFA room blocks and were ultimately happy with their financial performance during the World Cup.
While room occupancy at the Inn at the Market during World Cup dates in June was down 4%, he said rates went up 40%.
Hotel Andra saw a 15% drop in occupancy in June during the World Cup, but rates were up 30%.
Still, there were empty rooms; room occupancy averaged around 80% at the Inn at the Market and 77% at Hotel Andra.
Overall, Schafer believes the games were a plus for Seattle. He said guests he spoke with praised the city’s walkability and its beautiful mountain and waterfront views.
Schafer said they were pleasantly surprised, overcoming media-fueled perceptions of a city full of crime and homelessness.
He said he hopes those tourists will spread the news about Seattle, ultimately helping the city gain more visitors in the years to come.
Stathokostopoulos said he believes a last-minute surge of domestic visitors helped replace international visitors and fill Seattle hotel rooms.
But he said the World Cup also scared away some regular summer travelers and slowed business travel, as some didn’t want to deal with a more crowded city than usual.
Stathokostopoulos said he is still analyzing the data that was released on Wednesday but noted of the 11 U.S World Cup cities, only Miami and Kansas City had a greater decline in room occupancy between World Cup events in 2026 and the same dates in 2025.
Both Miami and Kansas City had an 8% decline, the CoStar Group numbers show.
San Francisco, another World Cup host, showed a 17% increase in booked rooms between 2026 and 2025, a fact that Stathokostopoulos attributes to the fact that San Francisco hotels were filled by guests attending major conferences as well.
He said that the city did not turn away conferences during the World Cup.
Visit Seattle and FIFA officials did not respond to The Center Square’s requests for comment on the World Cup’s economic impact.
Jon Scholes, executive director of the Seattle Downtown Association, said the World Cup was a big positive for Seattle.
He said it wasn’t just hotels that benefited from the games.
“I think if you were leaning soccer, you did all right,” he said.
Scholes said bars with televisions to watch the games and restaurants near Lumen Field saw surges in business.
Scholes said statistics from Placer.ai showed on World Cup days there were more visitors in Seattle downtown than on those same dates a year earlier.
He said a walkable downtown impressed many visitors; unlike other cities, the World Cup Games were played near downtown, he noted.
More than 3 million people visited downtown across the six World Cup match days Seattle hosted the 2026 FIFA World Cup, he said, based on data from Placer.ai.
Scholes said this represents a 17% increase in downtown foot traffic compared to the comparable days in 2025.
He also said the numbers should be larger because Placer.ai does not track international visitors.
Simply Seattle, known for its SuperSonics and other locally-themed merchandise, was one of the tourism-oriented businesses that were winners from the World Cup.
Jake Smidt, vice president of product for the four-story chain, said the store broke business records in June and July as World Cup fans walked in looking for game merchandise.
He said Simply Seattle’s two stores near Pike Place Market and on the Seattle waterfront particularly benefited.
Smidt said World Cup-branded items were the best sellers, and said he enjoyed seeing soccer fans from around the world.
“Once the games started, I knew whoever was in town was going to be caught up in the moment and excited to support merchants in the city,” he said.
Scholes said there were losers too, particularly businesses who couldn’t capture the soccer spirit,
‘I heard anecdotally from the wine bar I go to regularly, ” he said. “They don’t have a T.V., and they’re not serving beer; they had one of the worst Junes ever.”