The FIFA World Cup 2026 has filled stadiums, but it hasn't delivered the international tourism surge many expected.
New figures from the US National Travel & Tourism Office (NTTO) show international arrivals rose just 0.2% year-on-year in June, even as the tournament's group stage ran from 11 to 27 June.
The biggest surprise came from the US' traditional source markets. Arrivals from Europe slipped 1.2%, while Asia fell 5.6%. Growth instead came from smaller markets, with arrivals from Africa up 13.8% and South America up 4.7%.
That is a far cry from earlier forecasts that the tournament would inject US$30.5 billion into the US economy through international visitor spending.
Not everyone was convinced those projections were realistic. Andrew Zimbalist, Professor Emeritus of Economics at Smith College, said: "FIFA plays a PR game with all of these numbers. It was never reasonable that there would be a $30.5 billion gain to the US economy."
Hotels in host cities did raise room rates during the tournament, but the American Hotel & Lodging Association said that higher prices did not translate into stronger occupancy or demand.
Jan Freitag, CoStar's National Director of Hospitality Market Analytics, told Forbes it was "hard to look at the absolute data and draw the conclusion that this tournament was a tremendous boon for international inbound".
One organisation that is set to come out well ahead is FIFA. Bloomberg Intelligence estimates football's governing body will generate US$9 billion in revenue from the tournament.
Host cities, meanwhile, each spent between US$100 million and US$200 million on infrastructure, transport and security. As Michael Edwards, Professor of Sports Management at North Carolina State University, put it: "FIFA's model is FIFA gets the revenue, and host cities bear the costs and the risks."