Plenty of Philly hotel rooms and Airbnbs still available days before FIFA World Cup kickoff

To Ed Grose, the FIFA World Cup is not looking like a bust for Philly-area hotels.

Yet the president of the Greater Philadelphia Hotel Association said the matches, which start Sunday and end July 4, have not brought booming business.

“It hasn’t delivered what we thought it would in terms of hotel rooms,” Grose said Monday.

Some of Center City’s 14,500 hotel rooms remain available on game days and game-day eves, he said, though he declined to provide an estimated occupancy rate.

Grose’s assessment — based on conversations with local hoteliers, he said — exemplifies the tourism uncertainty that remains just days before kickoff.

Philadelphia has raised about $140 million in public and private funding to host the World Cup, according to Front Office Sports, and officials are heavily marketing the six South Philly games and other fan events across the city.

Yet some soccer fans have said they’re avoiding World Cup matches due to a bevy of factors, including high ticket prices, expensive airfare, frustrations over FIFA’s business practices, and concerns among international fans about entering the U.S. due to the Trump administration’s immigration policies. On average, international tourists stay longer and spend more money than domestic travelers.

There are other signs that lofty World Cup projections — which included FIFA’s broad promise of tens of billions of dollars in total economic impact — may not come to fruition.

The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that every U.S. host city except San Francisco was seeing hotel occupancy of 40% or less, citing a recent CoStar report. Host cities in Mexico and Canada saw slightly better hotel occupancy, though still under 50%, according to the Journal.

In Philadelphia, Google Travel searches show abundant hotel vacancies at prices under $300 or even $200 a night on some match days.

The region’s short-term rental market has seen some last-minute demand, with about 60% of local Airbnbs and Vrbos set to be occupied on game days and game-day eves, according to AirDNA, which analyzes the platforms’ booking data. In early May, fewer than half available rentals were booked on those days.

As of Monday, World Cup demand has helped drive a 15% year-over-year increase in the number of Philly-area bookings and an 8% increase in occupancy on game days and game-day eves, said Bram Gallagher, AirDNA’s director of economics and forecasting.

Those figures place Philly “right in the middle” of the World Cup markets, he said.

“Some places are doing very, very well and some places are seeing marginal benefits,” Gallagher said, noting that Mexican markets are doubling demand. “In Philly, Boston, Atlanta, we’re seeing respectable gains.”

Airbnb, which has partnered with FIFA, is still predicting that the World Cup will be “the biggest hosting event in Airbnb’s history — surpassing the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris,” according to a company statement, which noted “meaningful excitement for the tournament,” including among first-time guests.

Jenica Jones received her first World Cup booking last month, after being included in an Inquirer article about low short-term rental demand during the tournament.

A guest from the Dominican Republican reserved Jones’ South Philly rowhouse for two nights in June, Jones said, and the host was hopeful that World Cup demand would finally pick up.

It hasn’t.

The 42-year-old said she got just one other booking for a single night.

Her Airbnb has a perfect 5-star rating, sleeps seven people, and is less than three miles from Lincoln Financial Field, the site of Philly’s six World Cup matches.

The app’s dynamic-pricing tool had initially suggested she list the property for about $900 a night during the World Cup. Since then, she has dropped prices and offered discounts on some nights to entice soccer fans, she said.

“I was predicting being full the entire month of June,” Jones said Tuesday. “They’re just not coming in as I expected.”

“My schedule was booked more last year,” she said. As of Tuesday, she even had availability July 4, when the city is hosting a World Cup match and an Independence Day concert for America’s 250th birthday.

Despite the sluggish demand, last-minute planners shouldn’t count on scoring World Cup deals in the Philly region, according to hotel and short-term-rental experts.

Gallagher, of AirDNA, said the most affordable Airbnb and Vrbo properties were the first ones to book up during the tournament. But individual hosts like Jones may choose to lower prices if their homes remain unbooked.

Grose, of the Greater Philadelphia Hotel Association, said guests will pay higher rates on average during the World Cup than they would on a normal summer day.

Yet on Sunday and three of the other five match days, many Center City hotels appeared to have rooms available for about $300 or less per night, as of Tuesday, according to Google Travel. Prices skewed higher and availability seemed more limited on the holiday nights of Friday, June 19, and Saturday, July 4, though rooms were still available across the city, including at the few hotels near the stadiums in South Philly.

Grose said he remains optimistic about the coming weeks, which includes not only the World Cup and America’s 250th birthday celebration, but also the MLB All-Star Game in July.

“Overall, the summer is still going to be a good summer for us,” he said.