During the 2026 World Cup, host-city hotel rates rose 13% on average. Miami rose 30.3%. New York fell 4.5%. The average hid the spread. Measured per hotel, the hotel rate premium at major events shows each city and each hotel where its upside is.
Before the tournament, the published forecast put host-city room rates up 7 to 25%. As an average it was roughly right: across the 16 host markets the premium came out at about 13%, and it set expectations. For any one city it was a starting point, and pricing decisions were made on the per-hotel view.
Living Lab measured each market on per-hotel fixed effects: each hotel against its own history and a counterfactual period. Miami booked 382,025 tournament room nights with a rate premium of 30.3%. Dallas booked 491,175 at 19.8%. New York booked the most room nights of any host, 537,655, and absorbed the largest event on earth at its usual June rate. Las Vegas did not host a match; its flagship expo in the same period ran 4.4% below the prior year. Outcomes fell on both sides of the band. The spread shows which cities had pricing power and what gave it to them.
A rate premium is a property of each city. It depends on the city’s existing calendar, its hotel supply, its short-term rental stock, and its usual June. Miami had headroom and pricing power. New York’s June is already full, so the tournament filled rooms that were going to sell anyway. Planned on the per-hotel view, Miami prices to its headroom and New York to its volume. The hotels that should hold rate and the hotels that should drive occupancy each get the right call.
Measure per hotel, per event and per route, and the figure shows a city what to change. The cities that gained 30% show what the premium depends on, and the next host can set those conditions up in advance: the calendar around the event, the supply in the market, the route mix bringing the fans. The same discipline applies to every figure a government is offered. A national total describes a country, and decisions are taken in a district, at a hotel or on a route.
Pricing decisions need the distribution of rate effects across hotels, which an average hides. The per-hotel view gives you the information that moves rate. The measurement is in the test was the World Cup. The page for hotels and accommodation sets out how the same measurement serves a hotel group directly.
Ask for the rate effect per hotel, per event, per route, with the distribution and not the average. Set up the calendar, the supply and the route mix before the next event, because those decide the premium.
None of the three states what it includes, what period it covers, or whether the money stayed. A footprint figure is only useful when it carries its own definitions, and it is only defensible when it is kept separate from impact.
A hotel pipeline decision is usually made on an occupancy trend, extrapolated forward. That answers a different question from the one a planner, a developer, or an investor faces: is the market short of rooms overall, or short of rooms on the 18 nights a year when demand peaks?
A new route photographs well on launch day. Whether it is still flying in year three, without deep discounting, and still worth the airport incentive that started it, is a quieter question, and it is the one that comes up at renewal.
International visitors to the United States fell 4.2% in 2025, the first annual decline since the pandemic, while worldwide travel grew. The spending did not disappear. It moved. Five economies are absorbing most of it, and the shift now looks structural.
A major event is a rallying point for civic pride, and just as easily a rallying point for protest. The difference is usually whether residents can see what the event does for their street, in terms they recognise, before the road closures start.
During the 2026 World Cup, host-city hotel rates rose 13% on average. Miami rose 30.3%. New York fell 4.5%. The average was true and useless: it would have told all 16 cities the same thing, and been wrong for most of them.
