The U.S. hospitality industry, however, is skeptical of the event’s money-making promises.
According to a FIFA spokesperson, the organization’s accommodations team worked closely with hotels to adjust room blocks, including on rates and room types.
“All room releases were conducted in line with contractually agreed timelines with hotel partners—a standard practice for an event of this scale,” the spokesperson said in a statement to Fortune. “In many cases, room releases were made ahead of established deadlines to further accommodate requests from hotels.”
“Many respondents describe the tournament as a ‘non-event’ in these cities,” the report said.
The FIFA spokesperson said tickets have been released at various price categories, including a minimum of 1,000 tickets at $60 each for each match, including the final.
Lisa Delpy Neirotti, director of the Sport Management Program at the George Washington University, said while politics may be a factor to consider, soccer fans will be more swayed by ticket and travel prices than anything else.
“The geopolitical issues are a very small piece of it,” she told Fortune.
Exorbitant costs and logistical barriers are certainly a drag for soccer fans looking to attend the
World Cup, Delpy Neirotti said, but international sporting events have a history of setting unrealistically high economic aspirations.
“Everybody wants to hear big numbers, right?” she said. “That gets everybody excited. That gets everybody to buy in.”
Delpy Neirotti does not expect an economic disaster from this year’s World Cup, but does warn that expectations should be tempered. There’s a likelihood that as most tickets become available, more soccer fans will book last-minute trips to give the hospitality and tourism sector a boost.
“It does bring economic impact, but it may not bring the impact that the report said,” Delpy Neirotti concluded. “You get all this hype, and then it kind of falls short. So then people are disappointed, but they still should be happy with it.”
