This summer’s World Cup in the northern hemisphere will bring millions of football lovers to stadiums across North America. But whether the event lives up to organizers’ high expectations may depend on fans like Brett Shields and John Milce from New South Wales, Australia.
Both are long-time fans of the Socceroos, their country’s men’s national football team, and both have traveled to the World Cup before. But only one of them plans to attend this year’s tournament, which takes place from June 11 to July 19 in the United States, Canada and Mexico.
Shields, 59, is going. He already has the necessary travel authorization, obtained during previous visits to his daughter, who lives in San Francisco. He plans to stay with her and watch Socceroos games there and in Seattle.
Milce, 76, who has been to six World Cups since 1966, will stay at home. He said he made comments online about President Donald Trump’s policies and feared being denied entry at the border because of the U.S. government’s proposed social media checks and broader immigration crackdown.
“I’m not a poor man, but with the costs involved, it was too big a risk,” Milce said.
With kickoff less than 60 days away, tourism and hospitality industry leaders in the 11 American host cities are closely monitoring the presence of international fans. The United States was the only major nation to report a drop in international tourism in 2025, and signs of weak demand are raising anxiety.
Research firm Tourism Economics projects that more than 1.2 million international visitors will travel to the United States for the World Cup. This includes almost 750,000 who would not have come otherwise, representing an increase of approximately 1.1 percentage points in international arrivals.
Still, the company revised downwards this month its forecast for the rate of recovery from the drop in tourist numbers compared to last year. Visa restrictions, fear of immigration agents (including at World Cup games), increased cell phone searches at borders and, for fans, exorbitant ticket and transport costs are just some of the barriers keeping people away.
Shields stated that if he didn’t already have his travel authorization and free accommodation, “I doubt I would travel to the World Cup in the current scenario.”
The World Cup, which drew 3.4 million spectators to Qatar in 2022, is a mega-event practically by definition, and organizers expect the bulk of bookings, both domestic and international, to come in the final two months.
The US Travel Association said this month that the World Cup has “extraordinary potential to generate major economic gains” in the United States, but added that “security concerns, political perceptions and barriers to entry may limit the United States’ ability to fully realize this opportunity.”
In Seattle, the expected number of domestic visitors to the World Cup has grown 30% since 2024, said Michael Woody, director of engagement at Visit Seattle. At the same time, the expected number of international visitors fell 17%, driven by a particularly sharp drop in Canadians.
Fans from countries such as Haiti and Iran, which are on a list of 19 countries whose citizens were banned from entering the United States by Trump, will not be able to watch their national teams’ group stage games. Fans of football powerhouses such as Ivory Coast and Senegal, among the 14 African nations whose citizens face strict visa restrictions, may be forced to pay bail of up to US$15,000 (R$74,400) to enter the country.
Betting on last minute bookings
American host cities are pinning their hopes on last-minute travelers. Zane Harrington, a spokesman for Visit Dallas, said he expects “the majority” of fans coming to the city will book their stays in the remaining two months before the tournament begins — or even during the tournament as teams advance from the group stage.
Martha Sheridan, CEO of Meet Boston, the city’s marketing and tourism organization, said ticket sales for the seven games at Gillette Stadium were “robust” and roughly split three ways between New England residents, domestic visitors from the rest of the country and international travelers.
Demand for hotels in Boston in June was up about 11% compared with the same period last year, she said. That increase was lower than her team expected for this period when planning began in 2024, she added, but she feels “very optimistic” that bookings will continue to rise in the coming weeks.
FIFA (International Football Federation) in recent weeks has released blocks of thousands of hotel rooms in the three host countries, while local organizing committees have reduced the size of fan festivals in places such as New Jersey, San Francisco and Seattle, fueling discussions about whether demand was below expectations.
But Jamie Lane, chief economist and senior vice president of analytics at AirDNA, a company that collects and analyzes short-term rental data, said it is common practice for large events to reduce their room blocks as they finalize preparations for staffing and sponsorships, and that the changes do not indicate weak demand.
A FIFA spokesman said the changes to fan festivals were not made in response to demand, noting that some of the events will now take place in several neighborhoods rather than in one large central location.
A bigger, less predictable event
Data published this month by AirDNA shows an increase in short-term rental bookings, to varying degrees, across all host cities. Bookings on group stage match days increased the most in Monterrey, Mexico, with an average increase of 564% compared to the same dates last year.
Bookings rose 209% in Mexico City, 171% in Kansas City, 152% in Miami and 52% in Toronto, according to AirDNA.
A number of factors, including which teams are competing and the degree to which short-term rentals are regulated in cities, influence these numbers. In San Francisco, where bookings for short-term rentals increased 28% on group stage game days, Anna Marie Presutti, CEO of the San Francisco Travel Association, said she believes demand has not reached its full potential because the war in Iran is making travel difficult for fans of Jordan and Qatar, two teams playing there.
In New York, where short-term rentals are tightly restricted, hotel bookings during the World Cup period are “about the same” compared with the same period last year, said Vijay Dandapani, CEO of the Hotel Association of New York City.
Sylvia Weiler, president of global destinations at travel marketing and data firm Sojern, said the revamped structure of this World Cup — spread across three countries and featuring a record 48 teams — made it difficult to predict how travel patterns would behave as the tournament approached.
“We talked about what was expected,” Weiler said. “I would always put in a little caveat because we didn’t know what to expect.”
