For the World Cup this week, the top hotels in the U.S. have sheer opulence as their north star.
Need a four-night stay in New York for the final games? The Peninsula has got you covered for a cool half a million bucks, with game tickets and a chauffeur thrown in. If you are in your fiscal restraint era, Raffles Boston is offering a more budget-friendly option: a $75,000 stay in the Presidential Suite, with a private helicopter ride on match day included.
The lavishness is fairly in keeping with the vibe of the event, which kicks off in North America this week. It is the biggest World Cup in history, with a record 104 matches to be played across the United States, Canada, and Mexico. But it is the cost, not the size, that has captured the attention. For the first time ever, the game’s regulating body FIFA has used dynamic pricing. As a result, tickets to the final in New York have reportedly surged to as much as tens of thousands of dollars per ticket. On average, this game is said to be costing fans five times as much as the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
It is quite a departure for the sport, traditionally known less for glamor and more for accessibility to the masses. On the one hand, there is the ever-growing demand for high-impact, experience-led travel and the expanding cohort of people who can pay for it. But others claim it is pure avarice and a missed opportunity that will ultimately cost American hotels and local economies.
“This could've been the year soccer went viral in the U.S.,” Jack Ezon, founder of Embark Beyond, said. “It could’ve been like Formula One six years ago; instead, everyone got greedy.”
And while the likes of Raffles and Peninsula are going big; hoteliers say numbers so far are well below expectations. Vijay Dandipani, the president of the Hotel Association of New York City, says it is nothing like the “bonanza” that was promised. New York was expecting an extra 1.2 million visitors over the six-week event, he said, but now it is looking more like 400,000 to 500,000. He blames visa challenges putting off international visitors, soaring living costs, the Iran War, and FIFA’s approach to pricing.
“We're going to lose somewhere around $100 million that we might otherwise have got if those numbers were to have come to pass," Dandipani said.
Others are feeling more optimistic about the hotel impact.
Jan Freitag, CoStar’s national director of hospitality analytics, agrees demand has been slow for rooms so far but expects that to change quickly — a point shared by hotel executives like Marriott International’s top bosses.
“I have the working theory that this is going to be the tale of two World Cups,” Freitag told me. “There's going to be June, and then there's going to be July.”
The early round matches won’t garner much interest, he added, particularly for Americans. Iran versus New Zealand, played in Los Angeles is a very different proposition to the pointy end of the tournament.
“When we get to those games, to those knockout round matches, stadiums are going to be full, cities are going to be buzzing, occupancies are going to be good, rates are going to be high,” he said.
Jamie Lane, the chief economist at AirDNA, which tracks global short-term rental demands paints an even more positive picture, particularly for secondary markets.
“We're seeing overall demand up about 30% compared to the same time last year,” he said.
Markets like Miami and Kansas City are working at a significantly stronger booking pace for the sweltering months of June and July, indicating a World Cup-driven boost.
The operators of places like the Mark Hotel — also known as the unofficial headquarters of the Met Gala — on New York’s Upper East Side are likely desperate for Freitag’s predictions to ring true. The penthouse there is going for $1 million for the final game; it hosts six people, and tickets to the last match and helicopter rides are included, according to the New York Post.
The Gansevoort has a World Cup offer too, but it’s more budget-friendly. Its ultimate football suite has two tickets to see England vs. Panama later this month for $30,000. Helicopter rides are included, as is “a next-day recovery massage or facial with Maison Sisley.”
Even restaurants are getting in on the action, according to the Post, with the Benjamin Steakhouse in Midtown Manhattan offering 500-gram caviar service offered up in a “custom glass soccer ball.”
It is not clear what kind of take up these offerings have actually received, though Accor representatives told Luxury Travel Advisor there have been many “serious inquiries” on its $75,000 suite.
Ezon, of Embark Beyond, is skeptical.
“I did 10 jets, last minute, to go see the Knicks game in Ohio … but when you're trying to charge $3,000 to $10,000 to go to FIFA, it's different, because most Americans are not as engaged or committed to the sport,” he said, noting he arranged just one high-end trip for the tournament.
He put together what he calls a "triple threat” — a $600,000 trip for an ultra high-net worth individual to go to Mexico for the opening ceremony, Vancouver for the knockoffs, and ending in New York for the grand final. But on the whole, the U.S. appetite for soccer is not yet there.
“Americans, they're like, ‘meh,’” Ezon said.
Regardless, it is all a far cry from a Budweiser and a burger, and the entire approach has left some American soccer fans miffed.
“I think it's shortsighted …it appears to be much more exclusive versus being able to expand the interest and grow the game here,” Brian, a longtime U.S. soccer fan, told me in Central Park on a recent weekend.
“I think they're marketing it like a Super Bowl, a tremendous Super Bowl; they hadn't done that in the past,” said Rich Czenszak, a New Jersey local who was visiting New York’s Rockefeller Center, the site of the upcoming fan zone, one warm Monday.
“I think fans are flocking to it, they can't get enough of it,” he added.
But at a soon-to-be fan zone at the The Grove shopping mall, locals fretted about crowds swarming the area.
“It’s going to be crazy,” one local told me. “I’ll be staying home.”
Paul Cain, president at On Location, FIFA’s official hospitality partner, said the extravagance surrounding the cup is part of a broader push into high-end sports travel. As tickets cost more, people want to spend more on the entire whole experience.
“The World Cup won't be back in North America in some people's lifetime. This is the kind of thing that you definitely would want to experience firsthand,” he said.
He believes the fuss about the pricing has landed a lot of attention, but that is just one piece of the puzzle. He stressed, for example, On Location is offering hospitality packages for as little as $600. But the most premium package are the 12 mid-field pitch seats in New York that provide a vantage point so good it is almost like being a player. Those tickets run to what he described as “north of a million” dollars.
Victor Matheson, a professor of economics at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, is not totally convinced. He does not believe the investment is paying dividends on local economies, particularly if foreigners opt to avoid the U.S.
“There are more rich people today than there ever have been,” he conceded. “But the question is, are there 7 million tickets worth of luxury travel visitors?” he said. “What you're then left with is an entire stadium filled not with soccer fans, but instead rich people who spend the entire game on their phone taking selfies for their influencer account.”
How about we pay more attention to the goal than the grid?
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