CoStar Expects Only a Limited World Cup Lift for US Hotels

CoStar announced it expects the 2026 FIFA World Cup to give US hotels only a limited boost.

World Cup demand should help host cities more than the wider market

Even with the World Cup ahead, expectations for hotel performance remain fairly modest.

CoStar and Tourism Economics said the 2026 FIFA World Cup should lift US hotel RevPAR by 1.7 percent during June and July. That should help demand, but it is not expected to change the overall market story in a major way.

For the full year, CoStar forecasts US hotel RevPAR growth of 0.6 percent, following a 0.3 percent decline in 2025. The biggest gains are expected in host cities, where RevPAR could rise 12.7 percent during the tournament months.

Without the World Cup, US hotel growth would look even weaker

Without the World Cup, that full-year growth would be only 0.2 percent, showing that the tournament should support the market more as a cushion than a major turning point.

CoStar also said most of the national lift is expected to come from ADR, with the average daily rate projected to rise 1.6 percent in June and July.

A similar pattern is visible in Italy; Milano-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics were expected to bring the biggest tourism gains to host destinations and surrounding areas, not the entire country equally. That supports CoStar’s view that large sporting events can create strong local hotel upside without fully reshaping the broader national market.

Photo by Johannes Hübner on Unsplash