\u00a0June 11 – Hours before the World Cup kickoff, the boost to travel and tourism expected from this year\u2019s biggest sporting event has yet to materialize.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For years, the tournament was expected to deliver \u200ba windfall for America’s travel industry, now grappling with declining international visitors amid what rights groups describe as a\u00a0climate of fear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The swarms of fans hotels had counted on are \u200cyet to arrive, forcing many to cut rates. Flight bookings have slumped as ticket prices have\u00a0skyrocketed. Expensive match tickets have further stymied demand, and industry analysts say excitement has been muted compared with past World Cups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The weak start suggests the traditional World Cup travel playbook – typically dependent on international fans willing to travel long distances and spend heavily to follow their teams – is faltering. Instead, the costs, visa hurdles and the logistics of attending matches across 16 host cities in three countries \u200bhave proved a deterrent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
U.S. travelers, in a country where soccer is less popular than in Europe, are not filling the gap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is “overall a disappointment. There’s no other word that I can say,” \u200bsaid Vijay Dandapani, CEO of the Hotel Association of New York City. The association has cut its forecast for hotel room revenue tied to the World \u2060Cup by 60% to roughly $60 million, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Flight bookings from Europe into most host cities for \u200bJune and July are down 3.8% on average year-over-year, according to Cirium, even after Europeans\u00a0had already pulled\u00a0back from travel to the U.S. last year. Bookings from Europe into New York, host of the July 19 \u200bfinal, have plunged 15.8%, Cirium said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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FIFA had projected 1.2 million fans would descend on the city, but Dandapani said the New York hotel association is only expecting half a million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dandapani said there has been a small uptick in bookings from U.K. and Norway fans recently, which he called a “positive sign.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hotels are hoping for a last-minute surge after the group stage concludes, after discouraging early data. Average bookings across host cities are up just 0.5% from a year earlier, according to analytics \u200bfirm CoStar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\u00a0June 11 – Hours before the World Cup kickoff, the boost to travel and tourism expected from this year\u2019s biggest sporting event has yet to materialize. For years, the tournament was expected to deliver \u200ba windfall for America’s travel industry, now grappling with declining international visitors amid what rights groups describe as a\u00a0climate of fear. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12903],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-415945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-12903"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=415945"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415945\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":415946,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415945\/revisions\/415946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=415945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=415945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=415945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}