It's been four years since Houston was first announced as a World Cup host city, but hotel owners say they don't see bookings as high as they expected one month away from the matches.
Houston was named a host city for the 2026 World Cup four years ago. Houstonians celebrated, and local officials called the selection a big economic win.
Now, with only a month to go before our seven matches, a quick online search shows plenty of hotel rooms are still available. Prices also seem fairly reasonable.
"We were expecting full occupancy, thinking we would be sold out by now," said Emre Ozsut, the director of sales for the Lancaster Hotel. "I talked to other hotels in downtown Houston," he said. "We are around 50% for the game nights and the games before. We are in the same boat.
""Typically for this time of year, booking into June, right now we're seeing about a 9% increase over what we normally see around this time," Michael Heckman, President and CEO of Houston First Corporation, said. "And that is about 11 percent in July. " That means one of the world's biggest sporting events is only bringing a 9-11% increase in hotel occupancy so far.
Heckman said Houston is seeing a 36% increase in short-term rentals for June and July, and he expects bookings to go up. Meanwhile, Ozsut said many hotels are dropping prices and no longer requiring guests to book multiple nights.
"If you look at the chart, when they announced FIFA was going to in Houston and to now, I would say there is a 50% difference in most of the hotels. ""It's multifaceted in the way that we look at these things," Heckman said. "Tourism, economic impact are clearly some of the ways to be able to do that, but exposing our destination to either countries or to people that have never been here is one of the ways.
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