World Cup in Miami Had Minimal Impact on Hotels, Restaurants

South Florida’s hospitality industry expected the FIFA World Cup to score a major win for business, but for many operators, the tournament fell short of the anticipated economic windfall during the region’s slow season.

Hotel executives and restaurant operators reported lower-than-expected business despite seven matches at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens between June 15 and July 18.

Hotels benefited from higher room rates during marquee match days, helping boost revenue, despite occupancy declines and shorter guest stays. Restaurants, meanwhile, reported mixed results, with operators saying success depended on aggressive marketing, watch parties and appealing to local customers rather than tourists.

The uneven performance reflects broader hurdles in Miami’s tourism economy during the tournament, where rising travel costs, expensive hotel rooms and restaurants, Visa challenges and visitors hopping between the tournament’s 16 host cities limited the prolonged stays many businesses expected.

Airbnb data showed strong international interest, with search volume for Miami stays jumping 50 percent before the July 11 quarterfinal and 47 percent ahead of the July 18 third-place match. Most bookings were made last-minute. AirDNA data for the Miami-Fort Lauderdale market showed short-term rental demand rose 8 percent year-over-year on match days, with average booked rates climbing 24 percent to $302. While match-day demand spiked — notably for Brazil-Scotland and Colombia-Portugal — demand outside of those dates dipped 2 percent, even as rates rose 21 percent.

Industry experts said the World Cup did little to change the underlying challenges that hospitality businesses face during the slow season.

Hotels cash in on higher rates, not occupancy

Coral Gables-based Driftwood Capital reported that its Miami-Dade and Broward County properties outperformed its West Palm Beach hotel because of their proximity to Hard Rock Stadium. The company owns the Courtyard by Marriott Miami West Turnpike, Residence Inn Miami West/FL Turnpike, Tru by Hilton Fort Lauderdale Downtown, Courtyard by Marriott Fort Lauderdale Weston and Canopy by Hilton West Palm Beach Downtown.

Daniel Katz, Driftwood’s senior vice president of portfolio asset management, said early group-stage matches generated little year-over-year revenue-per-available-room growth, but demand accelerated for high-profile matchups like Brazil-Scotland and Colombia-Portugal, as well as knockout-round games.

The gains came almost entirely through pricing rather than fuller hotels.

“We actually saw year-over-year occupancy declines during those time periods, but we saw a huge premium in rate,” Katz said.

Average daily rates increased 18 percent to 30 percent on marquee match days, while occupancy declined 5 percent to 20 percent, depending on the game, he said. Revenue per available room, a standard hotel industry metric that combines occupancy and room rates, posted double-digit percentage gains during premier matches.

The Colombia-Portugal match proved particularly lucrative.

“I had hotels that were up 50 percent to 80 percent year over year in terms of rate for those games,” Katz said, adding that RevPAR increased 30 percent to 90 percent at Miami and Fort Lauderdale hotels for the matchup.

But the tournament disrupted normal booking patterns, he said.

Corporate and group travelers largely avoided South Florida during the tournament because of anticipated congestion and elevated room rates, Katz said. While the premium pricing on game days helped offset weaker demand before and after matches, hotels did not see the extended vacations many expected.

“We were thinking people were going to come to Miami, stay here for two days before and maybe a day or two after, but what we really saw was that the length of stay wasn’t four to five nights. It was one to two nights,” Katz said.

Katz said high hotel rates may have contributed to shorter visits, noting many properties, including their own, eventually axed minimum-stay requirements as bookings failed to materialize. He speculated that fans traveled among the tournament’s multiple host cities or used less expensive cities as home bases before flying into Miami for individual matches.

At Yotel Miami, a New York-based Aria Development Group-owned hotel in downtown, performance followed a similar pattern.

Occupancy was largely unchanged from June 2025, but the hotel’s average daily rate increased nearly 25 percent year over year to $136, said David Arditi, a partner at Aria. Food-and-beverage revenue was the hotel’s biggest winner, jumping 50 percent during the month.

The property’s location near Bayfront Park’s FIFA Fan Festival drove foot traffic to its restaurants and bars.

“It was good, not great,” Arditi said. “It was certainly better than the prior year, but it wasn’t quite as much as people were hoping for.”

Watch parties helped draw crowds

Burgermeister co-owner Alex Ringleb said business increased during the World Cup compared to other June-July seasons, but it wasn’t the boost many restaurant operators hoped for.

He said watch parties, food and beverage specials and social media promotions on Facebook and WhatsApp drew crowds to his Brickell and South Beach locations, yet the promotions weren’t enough to offset the summer slump South Florida restaurants face.

Burgermeister’s South Beach location generated 3 percent less revenue than a year earlier, while its Brickell restaurant was down 10 percent, he said.

“The World Cup was a short lifeline because without it, I think it would have been way worse,” he said.

Ringleb said the restaurants that benefited most didn’t just rely on World Cup visitors but drew tourists and locals by creating destinations to watch the games and offering food and drink specials.

He pointed to René y Manolo, a 24-hour Cuban café on Southeast Second Street near Biscayne Tower, which stayed busy throughout the tournament by offering inexpensive food and beer during match broadcasts.

Paulina Begliomini, a local real estate broker and restaurant consultant who owns PB Restaurant Partners, said her clients in Wynwood, Aventura and South Beach that hosted watch parties and promoted match-day events reported higher sales, but those gains came with added expenses like marketing and decorations.

The tournament’s strongest business impact came during the bigger games and knockout rounds rather than at the start of the competition, she said.

“As great as the boost was during the slowest month of the year, it may or may not translate to return customers or increased foot traffic from tourists, now that the World Cup is over,” she said.