Postgame report: World Cup hotel performance surprises and implications for future mega events
Postgame report: World Cup hotel performance surprises and implications for future mega events
Booking windows remained short for the monthlong tournament
Spain defeated Argentina 1-0 to capture the 2026 FIFA World Cup championship on July 19 in East Rutherford, New Jersey. (Getty Images)
https://www.costar.com/article/1019049656/postgame-report-world-cup-hotel-performance-surprises-and-implications-for-future-mega-events?
North America's time as host of the best soccer players the world has to offer has come to an end, but the results of the tournament are worth reflecting upon for the hotel industry.
Jan Freitag, national director of hospitality analytics at CoStar Group, and Peter Yeung, managing director of the Walker Hotels Collection in New York City, joined the "CoStar News Hotels Podcast" to recap hotel performance and lessons learned from the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
Yeung said his properties — the Walker Hotel Greenwich Village and the Walker Tribeca Hotel — saw occupancies north of 90% and a rate premium of more than 25% this past weekend when East Rutherford, New Jersey, hosted the World Cup final between Spain and Argentina.
"Anytime you have a sporting event of this world magnitude, the excitement is electric in a sense that you have people from all different cultures and all different backgrounds celebrating the unity of a sport, and you can imagine the passion behind that. For people to travel maybe long distances, or even driving into the city and the area, is a commitment, and it's because of the energy that someone wants to be a part of," he said.
The smaller markets, such as Guadalajara, Monterrey and Kansas City, were among the biggest winners from hosting World Cup matches, Freitag said. Markets such as Dallas, New York City and Los Angeles enjoyed growth in revenue per available room mostly through a boost in rate.
Looking ahead, the United States will either fully host or partially host the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, the 2031 FIFA Women's World Cup and the 2034 Salt Lake City Olympics. Yeung said from an operational side, the biggest takeaway he had from this event to apply to others was to make travel as easy and safe as possible for the guest.
"You want to make them feel like the hotel is knowledgeable about the event, and that they feel good about booking your hotel specifically," he said. "That's one thing we learned here is that providing information and knowledge, and having a traveler feel safe about coming to your city, is important."
Freitag said one of his takeaways was to be patient with bookings, because the booking window didn't materially change from a standard summer pattern.
"I was super surprised that the booking window did not change as much as I thought it should," he said. "A lot of reporters we talked to were like, 'Oh my God, does that mean nobody's coming?' It turns out that the booking window was not different from any other week (or) from any other major event, that people just took a long time."
For more from CoStar's Jan Freitag and the Walker Hotel Collection's Peter Yeung, listen to the podcast embedded above.
Analysts wait to see how optimistic hotel companies will be following strong first half of 2026
Significant outlook improvements could boost stocks
(Getty Images)
https://www.costar.com/article/1732270888/analysts-wait-to-see-how-optimistic-hotel-companies-will-be-following-strong-first-half-of-2026
With strong second quarter numbers a foregone conclusion, the market is waiting to see just how much publicly traded hotel companies are willing to translate that performance into forward-looking optimism.
C. Patrick Scholes, managing director of lodging and leisure equity research for Truist Securities, said the market will be keenly tuned into how hotel companies adjust their full-year outlook in response to a stronger-than-expected first half of 2026.
"You could see some upsides to stocks just depending on how bullish the companies want to be," he said.
But Scholes isn't sure hotel companies are likely to be overly optimistic for the rest of the year, particularly after registering only minor increases after a surprisingly strong first quarter.
U.S. hotel performance, particularly around the World Cup, has been a strong driver for hotel companies in the second quarter. Scholes said if there's a negative to be found in the quarter, it's comparatively weaker hotel performance internationally.
"China has definitely slowed in the last couple of months, and companies have varying degrees of China exposure," he said. "It's definitely for Wyndham an Achilles' heel ... Wyndham has about 15% exposure to China."
But ultimately the domestic strength of hotel companies' portfolios and demand will be the primary topic of conversation during earnings calls, said Michael Bellisario, senior research analyst and managing director at Baird.
"China has been a little softer, and I'm guessing that will be discussed a bit, but at the end of the day, the hotel brands are two-third-plus U.S. businesses, and the U.S. has been great," he said.
REIT rebound
The common theme for publicly traded hotel companies in recent years is brands outperforming while real estate investment trusts have lagged, but this quarter is expected to be something of a turnaround for the real estate investment trusts, analysts said.
Bellisario said the last few years have conditioned some investors to be skeptical of hotels REITs even as fundamentals have improved.
"There hasn't been a good normal year [for REITs] since 2017 or 2018," he said. "Investor interest in the space is still low to medium."
But Scholes pointed out public hotel REITs are perfectly poised to enjoy the moment as their portfolios are almost exclusively domestic and are in the right segments to succeed.
"There's a very favorable tailwind right now, a very favorable setup," he said. "They tend to be situated towards the upper end of the travel spectrum."
But Bellisario noted it will be interesting to see if the REITs can continue improving stock prices and engage in what has historically been the traditional behavior of hotel REITs: issuing stock to fund purchasing hotels.
"It's about when does the capital allocation change," he said. "When does Host [Hotels & Resorts] issue equity and go buy because the marking is saying 'Hey, you can go do that'? When does Apple Hospitality REIT do that? Apple's stock right now is $17.02. They last issued stock in December 2023 in the low $17s."
In recent years, hotel REITs have largely been sellers in the market, so returning to buying could mark a major shift in the transactions market across the hotel industry.
World Cup
After a period of hemming and hawing over just how impactful the 2026 FIFA World Cup would be on hotel performance, it seems that early returns are showing the optimists winning the day.
"When it comes to the tournament, I was definitely one of the bulls out there," Scholes said. "In our research, the World Cup looked strong all along."
The strength of the event has varied market to market and hotel performance has been largely driven by rate growth, but there are also knock-on effects that get underestimated in macroanalysis, Scholes added.
"It wasn't an A-plus-plus, but I'd say at the end of the day it was an A-minus for hotels," he said.
Bellisario said he's skeptical public markets will be weighing that World Cup win too heavily, though.
"You're going to hear fantastic stats for second-quarter growth, July growth, and the debate in the market is 'OK, great. We see that in the data, but it's done,'" he said.
Hospitality has a talent pipeline, but it doesn't have a talent management strategy
Structured onboarding, clear career path among the improvements needed
Abhi Mukherji (Hospitality Training Academy)
https://www.costar.com/article/531871290/hospitality-has-a-talent-pipeline-but-it-doesnt-have-a-talent-management-strategy?
The industry spent decades telling young people that hospitality is a career with genuine global reach, rapid progression and rewards that few other sectors match. Then it hired those graduates, gave them six weeks of compliance training, dropped them into a rota built for someone else and watched them leave within two years. We should not be surprised by the results.
The numbers are not ambiguous. A Vestd Employee Retention Report analyzing 1,400 U.K. companies found hospitality has the second-lowest employee tenure in the country, with workers staying an average of just three years. That figure covers all hospitality employees. For graduates, the picture is worse. A significant proportion leaves the sector entirely before they ever reach a supervisory role. This is not a talent supply problem. It is a talent management failure, and the industry built it one poor decision at a time.
The promise gap is real
Universities selling hospitality degrees describe general management, international mobility and accelerated leadership tracks. What graduates frequently encounter instead is an industry structured around task completion: check-in procedures, mise en place, housekeeping rotation. None of those tasks lack dignity. All of them are necessary. But they are not what a 22-year-old with a degree in international hospitality management thought they were signing up for.
ONS data published by the House of Commons Library in June 2025 shows median hourly pay for full-time hospitality employees at £12.76 in April 2025, against a national median of £17.90. That is a 29% gap between what hospitality pays and what the wider economy pays for full-time work. A graduate entering the sector in 2026 faces a wage gap and a narrative gap. They were told one story. They got another.
Poor management is the retention killer nobody wants to discuss
Last quarter I sat across from Joseph, a general manager at a four-star property who had lost three graduate hires in 18 months. His line stayed with me. “We hire them like we will keep them. We manage them like we won’t.” Joseph is not an outlier. He is the rule.
Gallup's State of the American Manager research found that managers account for at least 70% of the variance in team engagement scores, a finding reaffirmed in Gallup's State of the Global Workplace 2024 report. Money drives the decision to look. The manager drives the decision to leave.
Most front-line managers in hotels and restaurants reached their positions because they were good operators. They could turn rooms faster than anyone, run a bar shift without breaking or manage a banquet for 400. That operational competence earned them a title. Almost nothing in their development prepared them to manage a graduate who expects coaching, feedback and a development plan.
A 2024 survey by Hospitality Action found that 76% of hospitality workers reported experiencing mental health issues, up from 56% in 2018. Axonify's 2024 frontline manager report found that 47% of hospitality managers report burnout themselves, and 64% have seen team members leave specifically because of burnout. When managers are burning out, they do not coach. They survive. Graduates in that environment read the situation correctly and find an exit.
The onboarding window is being wasted
Research consistently shows that the decision to stay or leave a job is often formed within the first 90 days. In hospitality, those 90 days are frequently spent on compliance induction, brand standards documentation and shadow shifts with whoever happens to be free. Structured onboarding tied to a graduate's stated development goals remains the exception, not the norm.
A midscale hotel group operating across 14 U.K. properties recognized this problem in early 2024. Working with an external training partner, they redesigned their graduate onboarding program to include monthly one-to-one reviews with department heads, a structured 12-month rotation across front office, F&B and revenue, and a named mentor from the senior leadership team for each graduate. Within 12 months, graduate retention at the 18-month mark improved from 41% to 67%. Guest satisfaction scores at those properties increased by 11 points on their internal NPS tracker. The investment paid back through lower replacement costs alone, before measuring the service quality improvement. (Data anonymized at operator request, figures verified internally.)
The career path has to be visible from day one
One of the most corrosive factors in graduate attrition is the absence of a visible timeline. Graduates are told progression exists but are given no clear indication of when it will happen, what it requires or who decides. Other industries have solved this. Law firms publish lockstep progression criteria. Consulting firms set explicit promotion timelines. Tech companies run quarterly performance conversations tied to defined level frameworks.
Hospitality still largely operates on a “when a role becomes available” model. For graduates with options and student debt, that model loses. UKHospitality reported more than 174,000 open vacancies in early 2024. The sector needs people badly enough to fill 174,000 roles but apparently not badly enough to tell the people already inside it when they will be promoted.
Operators that publish explicit 18-to-36-month development frameworks for graduate entrants, with defined competency milestones and salary bands attached to each level, report measurably better early retention. The framework does not have to be perfect. It has to exist and it has to be credible.
Three things to do before the next graduate intake
First, audit your management layer. Identify which department managers have received formal people-management training in the last 24 months. If fewer than half have, you have a structural problem that will undo every graduate recruitment investment you make.
Second, fix the first 90 days. Build a structured onboarding plan that connects each graduate's stated career goals to their daily experience from week one. Assign a named senior mentor, not just a buddy. Schedule monthly development conversations and track them.
Third, publish your progression framework. Create a written, accessible document that maps the route from graduate entry to supervisor and from supervisor to department head, with time expectations and competency criteria at each stage. Share it at offer stage, not after someone has already decided to leave.
Suggested KPI: Graduate retention at the 18-month mark. Set a baseline now, target a 20-percentage-point improvement within two years and review quarterly.
The industry has a talent pipeline. What it lacks is the management infrastructure to keep the talent inside it. That is a fixable problem. Fixing it starts with acknowledging that graduates are not leaving because they lack commitment. They are leaving because the sector has not yet decided to take them seriously. Joseph knew it. Most operators know it. The question is who acts on it first.
Tactical takeaways
1. Implement a formal 90-day onboarding plan with monthly development conversations for every graduate hire, tied to their stated career goals, not just operational checklists.
2. Invest in structured management development for all supervisors and department heads with direct reports, prioritizing coaching skills and feedback delivery.
3. Publish a written career progression framework at offer stage, with defined competency milestones, time expectations and salary bands from graduate entry through to first management role.
Abhi Mukherji is a principal consultant for hospitality operations and transformation at Hospitality Training Academy. He is based in London.
This column is part of ISHC Global Insights, a partnership between CoStar News and the International Society of Hospitality Consultants.
There’s So Much More to Jamaica Than What Most Travelers Know
Yves Alarie/Unsplash
https://www.fodors.com/world/caribbean/jamaica/experiences/news/a-side-of-jamaica-you-probably-have-never-seen
From Jamaica's Blue Mountains to its ocean conservancy efforts, I wanted to explore a side of the island not often seen.
When you hear the word Jamaica, you think of blue water, reggae music, jerk chicken, and rum punch—you’re not far off. But beyond the resorts and postcard views is a Jamaica filled with creativity, history, and culture that stays with you long after you leave.
The capital city of Kingston has a pulse all its own. One minute you’re wandering through Water Lane surrounded by towering murals and vibrant street art and the next, you’re standing inside Tuff Gong Studios, where Bob Marley’s legacy still echoes through the walls. In Jamaica, music isn’t just something you simply hear. It’s a sound woven into the very identity of the island itself.
Too often, travelers visit Jamaica only to stay confined to their all-inclusive resorts. I wanted to experience something different and venture off the beaten path, and so I took a winding road high into the Blue Mountains to the peace and tranquility of Strawberry Hill, a hotel tucked in the hills and touting itself as a magical mountain village. The pace of Jamaica felt quieter and slower here as I looked down at the city below and enjoyed an elevated meal with views that stretched for miles. That feeling continued as I made the trek across the island to Port Antonio, where lush jungle landscapes, hidden coves, and the intimate atmosphere of Geejam Hotel revealed a completely different side of paradise.
One of the more meaningful moments of my trip happened when I went out on a glass-bottom boat with the Alligator Head Foundation. Onboard, I learned how local conservationists are regrowing coral reefs, protecting sea turtles, and planting mangroves to help preserve Jamaica’s coastline for future generations. After weathering recent storms, that work felt even more powerful and served as an important reminder that Jamaica’s beauty isn’t accidental; it’s intentional and one protected by people who deeply love this island.
Of course, there are still those unforgettable Jamaican moments travelers expect—catamaran cruises along the coast, snorkeling through clear waters, sunsets over the Caribbean, music carrying late into the night—but after experiencing the resiliency woven throughout the island, I was reminded that Jamaica is more than a destination; it’s a feeling and one that stays with you long after the trip is over.
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