The 16 Best Things to Do in Paris (And the Top Things to Avoid)
The 16 Best Things to Do in Paris (And the Top Things to Avoid)
https://www.fodors.com/world/europe/france/paris/experiences/news/photos/20-ultimate-things-to-do-in-paris
The best things to do—and the top things to avoid—in Paris. Plus, the best hotels, restaurants, and tips for a memorable vacation. All curated by a trusted Fodor's writer based in the French capital.
After 20 years of living and writing in Paris, I sometimes feel I’ve only just scratched the surface. Beauty that she is, Paris is so much more than skin deep, and a single visit, as lovers of Paris well know, is a tantalizing toe dip into an ocean of possibility. Certain sights are a must—the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, Musée d’Orsay, the Louvre, Notre Dame—but to feel the deeper essence of Paris, do what Parisians do: splurge at a great restaurant, cycle through the city, or stroll the parks, catch a concert, opera, ballet or jazz festival, and seek out the rarer cultural gems. As world capitals go, Paris is compact and easy to cover on foot, so budget some unstructured time to just wander, dream, discover, and be inspired.
PHOTO: ©MARIE-LINE SINA
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Climb up the Eiffel Tower
WHERE: 7th arrondissement
Adventurous visitors to Paris’s most iconic monument can avoid long lines by striding up the 360 stairs to the first floor then hopping on an elevator to the second and third floors. You can also book a tour that skirts the line or reserve a table at Thierry Marx’s Madame Brasserie or multiple-Michelin-star chef Frédéric Anton’s two-star Jules Verne restaurant—both give access via a private elevator (there are also food stands and a third-floor champagne bar that don’t).
The Eiffel Tower is most breathtaking at night when 20,000 glittering lights perform a sparkling display for five minutes every hour on the hour until 1 am. In-your-face views of the tower are best from the Trocadéro plaza just across the river (hang on to your wallet). Whether best seen from near or far is an ongoing debate, so do both!
PHOTO: OLRAT/SHUTTERSTOCK
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Be Transported at the Philharmonie de Paris
WHERE: 19th arrondissement
Paris’s reigning concert hall’s innovative programming, music-education workshops, accessible pricing, location at the fringes of Paris (a calculated decision to bridge the cultural gap between Paris and its suburbs), acclaimed acoustics (partly due to its 360-degree seating), world-class exhibitions on subjects like The Velvet Underground, David Bowie and Disco, and hallucinatory architecture by Jean Nouvel have earned it a top spot on Paris’s cultural landscape.
There’s a delight here for every age, taste, and musical preference—and ways to visit last minute on the cheap. The online ticket exchange lets you purchase tickets, often for sold-out concerts, at the same or a lower price. Those 28 and younger or 65 and older get the best deals: one hour before concert time, tickets go on sale at discounted rates as low as €11—tickets that sell for €170, for example, can go for as little as €30. In a hall where no audience member is more than 38 meters (125 feet) from the conductor, that’s a steal.
PHOTO: ©MARIE-LINE SINA
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Sail Around Paris on a Bateau Mouche
WHERE: 6th arrondissement
A dozen of the city’s major landmarks, including the Louvre, Eiffel Tower, Musée d’Orsay, Notre Dame, and Invalides sit on or near the riverbanks, and a boat trip is a great way to get a good look at Paris’s 37 historic bridges. Below the Pont Neuf—meaning New Bridge, but actually Paris’s oldest bridge, go figure—several boating companies offer rides that include anything from a flute of champagne to a gourmet meal or straight sightseeing with or without commentary. Rides range from 90 minutes to four hours and take you 15 kilometers (9 mi) through the heart of the city. A cheaper option: get an all-day ticket to hop on and off the Batobus—Paris’s water taxi—from 10 am until 9:30 pm, leaving every 20 minutes from nine stops around the city. An expensive option: take a Michelin-star ride on the Don Juan II yacht, hosted by multiple Michelin-star chef Frédéric Anton (chef at 2-star Jules Verne, atop the Eiffel Tower and 3-star Le Pré Catalan in the Bois de Boulogne) or Alain Ducasse’s Ducasse sur Seine for a blowout meal and the city’s most romantic views.
PHOTO: VINCENNES, THE TEMPLE OF LOVE AND ARTIFICIAL GROTTO ON THE DAUMESNIL LAKE, IN THE PUBLIC PARK, IN AUTUMN
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Stroll in a Park
Paris has 500 parks and gardens, ranging from postage-stamp size to sprawling Bois de Vincennes’ 2,500 acres of gardens, forests, lakes—and a nudist park. There’s nothing like passing a lazy afternoon at the Institut Suedois’s hidden garden and café in the Marais, watching the river go by at Square Barye at the tip of the Île Saint-Louis, or catching up on a novel at the secluded gardens of the Archives Nationales.
The Luxembourg Gardens’ tree-lined walkways, sculpted flower beds, and immaculate lawns (meant for admiring, not for lounging—there are benches for that) is a must-visit, with romantic Palais Royal, mile-high Parc de Belleville, bucolic Parc des Buttes-Chaumont, exquisite Parc Floral de Paris (with jazz and classical music festivals in summer), Parc de Bagatelle’s botanic gardens, and the museum-filled Jardin des Plantes as close seconds. Many museums harbor hidden gardens, and the Marais is packed with tiny flower-strewn enclaves of peace. Don’t forget Père Lachaise cemetery—its tranquil alleys are perfect for wandering on a fine day in spring or fall.
PHOTO: JEAN-PIERRE DALBÉRA [CC BY 2.0] FLICKR
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Seek Out Under-the-Radar Cultural Spaces
Le 19M, funded in part by Chanel, was created to house and preserve the knowledge of more than 700 “petit mains,” artisans practicing the centuries-old métiers that make couture possible. The center offers creative workshops for adults and kids, as well as an art gallery, café, and bookstore. Also in the 19th arrondissement, Centquatre-Paris is a haven of cultural life for all ages, welcoming artists in residence from around the world, contemporary art exhibitions, workshops for all ages, dance, concerts and nightlife, boutiques, and a café, all in the spirit of community, diversity, and inclusion. Sweden’s only cultural institute abroad, the Institut Suédois offers free admission to art exhibitions and events, including music, film, and live performances. Set in a historic mansion in the heart of the Marais, its garden café is a perennial favorite. The BnF Museum features masterpieces from France’s most famous library’s collections from antiquity to the present. Rare books, manuscripts, maps, jewelry, coins and photography, musical scores, prints and posters are displayed in the historic Richelieu site’s glorious rooms.
PHOTO: ©SARAH SERGENT/PARIS JE T'AIME
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Go to a Music Festival
Not a month goes by in Paris without a music festival to liven things up, but summer is when things really get going. Kicked off by the all-city (and all-France) Fête de la Musique, held every year on the summer solstice (June 21), when the city becomes an all-night open-air concert hall—with bars open till dawn and musical performances on every street corner—Paris welcomes more than 28 summer festivals, from the candlelit Festival Chopin in the Bagatelle Gardens to Rock en Seine, featuring live performances by internationally acclaimed artists at the Parc de Saint-Cloud. On the rolling lawns of Paris’s bucolic Park Floral, you can picnic to the notes of world-class Jazz at the Paris Jazz Festival, cutting-edge contemporary music at the eco-friendly We Love Green Festival, and classical music at Classique au Vert. Parc de la Villette hosts a multitude of festivals, outdoor movie screenings, and live performances, including the La Villette Jazz Festival and Villette Sonique for rock, electronic, and other up-to-the-minute genres. Escape the heat for a week in June and July at the Philharmonie de Paris’s Days Off festival, featuring an eclectic line-up of pop, folk, and electro in the city’s top music venue.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF CHAPELLE NOTRE DAME DE LA MEDAILLE MIRACULEUSE
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Visit Paris’s Smaller Churches
Notre Dame, Sacré Coeur, and Saint-Sulpice aside, some of Paris’s smaller churches have been tending their flocks for nearly 1,000 years. Maybe it’s the soaring gothic stones or centuries of prayers murmured between the walls, but there’s no denying the uplift at Paris’s churches, both great and small. If the ancient hushed aisles don’t move you, an intimate candlelight concert at tiny 12th-century Julian le Pauvre, minuscule Saint Ephrem, or under Sainte-Chapelle’s glimmering windows certainly will. Hidden away a few steps from the Bon Marché department store, the Chapelle Notre Dame de la Medaille Miraculeuse is where the Blessed Virgin appeared before 24-year-old novice Catherine Labouré in 1830. Visitors can see her “incorruptible” remains as fresh as the day she died, in 1876.
In the heart of the city, recently restored Église Saint-Germain-des-Prés is one of the oldest churches in Paris (excellent concerts here too). A scandalously overlooked masterpiece just 30 minutes by metro from central Paris, the Basilique de Saint-Denis—among the first of France’s masterpiece Gothic cathedrals—is the final resting place of 43 French kings, 32 queens (including Marie Antoinette and Catherine de Medici), 60 princes and princesses, and Europe’s most important assemblage of recumbent statuary.
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Splurge on a Cocktail at a Swanky Hotel
At Paris’s luxury hotels, especially the 12 palaces, you’ll pay 20%-30% more for an experience that’s far beyond most cocktail bars. At the Hôtel de Crillon’s Les Ambassadeurs, a listed historic monument, you can sip a cocktail or a frosty coupe de Champagne under soaring gilded and frescoed ceilings. Flop into a leather club chair at the Meurice’s legendary Bar 228, where Salvador Dali (and his ocelot) liked to go before retiring for the night. Joséphine, the Lutetia hotel’s winsome piano bar (steps from the Bon Marché) features glorious art nouveau murals discovered during the hotel’s restoration. If the Ritz’s Bar Hemingway speaks to you, as it does hundreds of others lining up at its doors, you can drop a cool €30-€1,500 for a cocktail served with a rose. Other cocktail greats: Shangri-La’s Bar Botaniste and La Bibliothèque Duc de Morny at La Réserve Paris.
PHOTO: CYRIL MARCILHACY
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Visit the Fondation Cartier
WHERE: 1st arrondissement
One of Paris’s great contemporary art centers has left in its former home in the 14th arrondissement to emerge in late 2025 in the heart of Paris as a major player in the Paris art scene. The Fondation, now across from the Louvre and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs and a few minutes’ walk from the Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection and the Centre Pompidou, is set in a 19th-century building redesigned by French architect Jean Nouvel, featuring a state-of-the-art modular interior with 80,000 square feet of exhibition space. The new museum showcases the foundation’s entire contemporary collection along with a program of solo exhibitions, workshops, talks, and tours.
PHOTO: CATARINA BELOVA/SHUTTERSTOCK
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Visit the Arc de Triomphe
WHERE: 8th arrondissement
Yes, it’s a big triumphal arch conceived by an even bigger ego—namely Napoleon Bonaparte’s—who abandoned the idea and the half-built arc well before his exile and death. Construction of the arc resumed during the restoration, but deterred by mishaps, regime change, and revolution, it was finally finished 30 years later by Louis-Philippe, who dedicated it to those fallen in the service of France.
It wasn’t until Baron Haussmann’s overhaul of Paris that the arc became what it is today—the central star from which 12 monumental avenues, including the Champs-Élysées, radiate. Though it’s a steep walk up (284 steps), you can go by elevator to all but the top terrace, which is 46 stairs up. The views are stupendous, and because you’re above, but not too far above, the city it feels all the more dramatic. You take your life in your hands if you attempt to cross the traffic circle at Étoile: enter at the Passage du Souvenir at the top of the Avenue des Champs-Élysées or at the Avenue de la Grande-Armée.
Our Town: How there’s more to Kohler, Wisc., than plumbing fixtures
https://hotelsmag.com/news/our-town-how-theres-more-to-kohler-wisc-than-plumbing-fixtures/?
by David Eisen
There’s a strong chance that your home contains a Kohler-made product. Maybe a toilet, a faucet, a sink or a bathtub—maybe all. Kohler is an American success story with a rich and riveting history; an immigrant story about a man who plumbed the depths of manufacturing only to build a plumbing empire.
It eventually would become even more.
Midway through the 19th century, a nine-year-old John Michael Kohler emigrated with his family from Austria to the American Midwest. He toiled in his teenage years as an itinerant salesman, but it was a trip to Sheboygan, Wisc., that altered the trajectory of his life. There, 55 miles north of Milwaukee, in a town that would later gain the moniker of “Bratwurst Capital of the World,” Kohler called on a local industrialist named Jacob Vollrath, fell in love with and married the businessman’s daughter, and settled down.
Kohler worked at the steel-and-iron factory his father-in-law owned and took over the business around the Panic of 1873, the post-Civil War financial crisis prompted by distress in the railroad industry. The company began dabbling in iron and enamelware products and, in 1883, as the story goes, Kohler put ornamental feet on a cast-iron water trough and sold it as a bathtub. The move proved to be a seminal moment: Four years later, more than two-thirds of the company’s business was in plumbing products and enamelware.
Around the turn of the century, Kohler bought 21 acres of farmland just west of Sheboygan and a new factory was built. Regrettably, Kohler would never see the sheer magnitude of the business he conceived. In 1900, at the age of 56, he passed away, likely of heart failure. Walter, his son, took over the reins of what would be designated the Kohler Company and the property surrounding the plant became a model company town known as the Village of Kohler. Talk about a home-field advantage.
The American Club in Kohler, Wisc., once housed immigrant employees of Kohler, but was recast as a hotel in 1981.
Beyond Pipes
Kohler is a global name in plumbing products. (Kohler is a private company, but Forbes estimated its 2025 revenue at approximately $7 billion.) What many don’t know is that it’s also a travel and hospitality company. And that’s thanks to a third-generation Kohler, Herb Kohler, a grandson of founder John Michael, who became CEO of Kohler Co. in 1972.
Often referred to as HVK, or Mr. Kohler by those more formal, Kohler was known as an innovator who above all championed the excellence of Kohler products. He expanded the company’s kitchen and bath offerings far beyond functional plumbing products to decorative and sophisticated works of art. Ironically, perhaps his biggest contribution had nothing to do with household functionality. Herb Kohler transformed Kohler from a plumbing fixtures company into a diversified luxury lifestyle brand through a singular idea: If Kohler could create beautiful, premium products for the home, it could also create premium experiences.
Kohler’s experiences were centered on three pillars: hospitality, golf, wellness. One of his boldest moves was transforming The American Club, which opened in 1918 to house immigrant employees, into a hotel in 1981. His gamble paid off: It collected its first AAA Five-Diamond Award in 1985 and garnered the distinction for decades after. The Tudor-style, 240-room hotel also houses three restaurants, including The Immigrant Restaurant, where the tasting-menu experience can last up to three hours. (For a quicker alternative, the gastropub Horse & Plow fries up some of the best cheese curds in the state.)
Next door to The American Club is the Carriage House, which opened as a 50-plus-room annex in 1986. It closed in 2025 for a comprehensive renovation and reopened the next year with 55 refreshed rooms and updated public spaces that immediately gave it a rate bump. (Average daily rates at Carriage House reach well above $1,000 per night during high season.) The renovation, led internally by Kohler’s design team and Nina Kohler, the wife of current Kohler Co. CEO David Kohler, brought about a lighter and more refined residential aesthetic. Naturally, bathrooms were a focal point, redesigned as an extension of the ground-level Kohler Waters Spa and featuring Kohler products, such as soaking tubs, multi-port showers and refined finishes such as Robern vanities, Ann Sacks tile and fixtures from the Castia line by Studio McGee.
Stephen Beaumont is president of hospitality for Kohler Co. He rejoined Kohler in 2025 after a prior 10-year stint from 2001 to 2011.
The Maverick
Kohler’s approach to modernization and growth begins with understanding what makes Kohler unique. And it was all the brainchild of HVK. Someone who understands that better than most is Stephen Beaumont, president of hospitality for Kohler Co. He worked with Herb Kohler for a decade in the early 2000s and returned to lead Kohler’s hospitality division in 2025. He, among others, called Kohler, who passed away in 2022, a maverick and a visionary. “He recognized the cultural significance and the potential of Kohler to be this destination and to become something more than simply a village for the people working in the factory,” Beaumont said. “He always stretched things. He never liked the idea of being told he couldn’t do something.”
His most audacious idea was Whistling Straits. In the 1980s, Kohler befriended another iconoclast, the famed golf course architect Pete Dye, whose previous work included the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., and The Ocean Course at Kiawah Island in South Carolina, both considered among the elite golf courses in the U.S. Dye courses are distinct: small, undulating greens, deep pot bunkers, deceptive shot angles. His handiwork includes the iconic island green of the 17th hole at TPC Sawgrass.
Kohler and Dye became quick friends. Together, they developed Blackwolf Run in 1988, which boasts two golf courses, River and Meadow Valleys. The former twice hosted the U.S. Women’s Open. Kohler wasn’t through; he wanted to attract more championship events, which meant building another course. It proved to be his magnum opus and, possibly, Dye’s, too.
The vision was a course along the shoreline of Lake Michigan that mimicked Ballybunion Golf Club, a links course in Ireland. Accomplishing this proved no easy feat, but mavericks aren’t often discouraged. So, Kohler acquired an abandoned airfield that once served as an Army anti-aircraft training facility about nine miles northeast of The American Club. More than 7,000 truckloads of sand were hauled in to create the jagged landscape of a links-style course replete with vertiginous dunes, fescue-ringed fairways and some 1,000 bunkers (though no one really knows the actual number; there are so many).
By 1998, Kohler had his championship course: Playing almost 7,800 yards from the back tees and defenseless to attacking lake winds, the Straits Course at Whistling Straits has hosted three PGA Championships, the 2007 U.S. Senior Open and the 2021 Ryder Cup. A sister course, The Irish, opened in 2000 and is known as much for being a stern test of golf as the sheep that roam its grounds. A statue of Kohler and Dye off the 18th hole at Straits overlooks the duo’s creation.
Whistling Straits on Lake Michigan hosted The Ryder Cup in 2021.
Golf is an integral part of the Kohler experience. All four courses are listed in Golf Digest’s top 100, and the Straits Course is often recognized as a top-five course in the U.S. you can play since it’s open to the public. Beaumont, who is not a golfer, recognizes the prescience of Herb Kohler to make the sport such an integral part of the Kohler experience, and not just as another activity. “One part of the resort supports the other,” he said. Put another way, golf and lodging have a symbiotic relationship: golf as an attraction helps fill rooms; rooms, then, support the golf. “They don’t sit independently,” Beaumont said.
Here’s the thing: Playing Whistling Straits is a bucket-list experience. It also costs a pretty penny. Eighteen holes of golf runs close to $900 when you factor in caddie fees. And that’s before raiding the pro shop for merch. “Clearly, the Straits Course is the center of attention. It is the one that everybody wants to play,” Beaumont said. (Next year, Kohler will open the “shortie” 14-hole Purebred Farm golf course.)
Here’s the other thing: Many don’t connect the dots between Kohler and Whistling Straits. Here’s another wrinkle: Kohler also owns and operates the Old Course Hotel in St. Andrews, Scotland, which is adjacent to the famous 17th hole of the Old Course, known colloquially as the “Road Hole.” (Players are forced to hit a nerve-wracking blind tee shot over a corner of the property.) Beyond The American Club, Carriage House and Old Course Hotel, Kohler also operates the Inn on Woodlake, also in the Village of Kohler, where an additional 66 rooms are in the process of being added, and the 144-room Lodge Kohler, an out-of-route away from Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisc. Good luck trying to get a room on gameday. Kohler also operates a small cabin collection.
An Immersion King Suite at the 55-room Carriage House, which was fully renovated in 2025.
Threading the Needle
Better defining the Kohler throughline is something Beaumont is keenly aware of. He is looking to thread it through more cohesive marketing that promotes the holistic Kohler experience; one that also includes a very important pillar: wellness. In 2000, the Kohler Waters Spa opened within the Carriage House. Four more Kohler Waters Spas ensued; two in Chicago and one each at the Old Course Hotel and Lodge Kohler. The argument could be made that Herb Kohler was in on wellness well before it became a constant theme within the hospitality landscape. Kohler Waters Spas emphasize hydrotherapy, which makes sense since Kohler knows a thing or two about water. “Wellness is a central focus,” Beaumont said.
Herb Kohler planted the seeds that would germinate into the Kohler experience. As Beaumont tells it, Kohler’s son, David, the fourth generation of the Kohler family, carries those creations forward, and is doing it through a meticulous and sharpened financial lens, one built on combining each element of the Kohler brand, from fixtures to fun. David Kohler, who also sits on the Green Bay Packers’ board of directors, holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He climbed up the Kohler Co. ranks by cutting his teeth as a business analyst. He also had a stint as a foreman in the cast iron foundry. Where Herb Kohler believed that every business unit should be financially viable on its own, under David Kohler’s direction, Beaumont said, the focus is on the total revenue derived and generated throughout the entire resort, inclusive of lodging, F&B, wellness and golf. “We know that there are bigger margins in certain areas, but they all contribute to the overall experience and financial success,” Beaumont said.
A short walk down Highland Drive from The American Club is the Kohler Design Center, a 36,000-square-foot showcase space of Kohler products, where prospective home buyers can check out the latest in smart toilet technology or shower systems. Down a flight of steps is a museum, a massive curio cabinet of sorts showcasing the more than 150-year history of Kohler, from early-on cast iron tubs to its vitreous china product lines. It’s not just tactile fixtures; it shares the story of a family that built a town.
“It’s the name of the company; it’s the name of the family; it’s the name of the village,” Beaumont said. “It sets the standard for everything that we do.”
2026 is the year of hotel rate growth, and the World Cup is only part of the story
Inflation tempers consumer sentiment, but trips still a priority
During the opening session of the Hotel Data Conference, Jan Freitag, national director of hospitality analytics for CoStar, gives FIFA a red card for its claim that the 2026 World Cup would generate hotel demand equivalent to 104 Super Bowls. (Bryan Wroten)
https://www.costar.com/article/1232755824/2026-is-the-year-of-hotel-rate-growth-and-the-world-cup-is-only-part-of-the-story
By Bryan Wroten
NASHVILLE, Tennessee — Rate growth is the name of the game, and it is why U.S. hoteliers are seeing a rosier picture as they look to the second half of 2026.
During the opening session of the 2026 Hotel Data Conference, attendees learned that CoStar and Tourism Economics revised their full-year 2026 and 2027 forecasts upward.
The U.S. hotel industry is forecast to end the year at 4.4% revenue per available room growth, said Amanda Hite, president of STR, CoStar's hospitality analytics division. The forecast for demand has been spot on so far, she said, but average daily rate growth has been stronger than expected and should reach 3.1% by the end of the year.
STR and Tourism Economics also revised up the 2027 forecast, based on the increased strength moving into the next year, she said.
The demand generated by the FIFA World Cup matches in June and July created “incredible performance,” Hite said. ADR surpassed expectations in June and July. July, in particular, created “really positive” momentum.
Even so, "this is not just about World Cup,” she said.
There has been strength across all U.S. hotel markets this year, with demand and ADR growth beyond World Cup host cities, setting up the hotel industry for continued growth through the rest of the year into 2027, she said. From a demand perspective, there shouldn’t be any major offsets next year from World Cup-related performance.
There’s strength in corporate demand and group travel this year, and that is expected to carry over into next year, as well.
“As we look at the 2027 RevPAR growth, the nice thing that we see across each metric — ADR, occupancy and RevPAR — solid gains for each chain-scale segment,” she said. “And what’s noticeable is that we don’t see much of that K-shape anymore.”
There is supply growth in the upper-midscale and upscale hotel segments that is affecting occupancy gains, resulting in more muted RevPAR growth for those two chain-scale segments, she said. However, across the board, supply growth for the industry is below 1% in aggregate.
Gross operating profits are rising, and STR expects 2026 GOP to be up 4%, Hite said.
“Starting in March, our revenue growth has outpaced our expense growth,” she said. “We have not seen that for over a year.”
Every month, expense growth had been rising faster than revenue gains, so it seems the industry has reached its inflection point, Hite said. That should remain the case for the rest of the year.
When looking at GOP per available room, however, when indexed to inflation, it’s still off of 2019 and declining, she said. GOP is growing, but margins are going to go down this year compared to last year.
“While there’s a lot of energy and momentum, there’s also still lots of pressures,” she said.
The good news is that travel is still there, Hite said. Americans are traveling more domestically, and there should be momentum from the World Cup to increase international inbound demand.
Consumer sentiment and inflation
Citing economist Adam Smith and his “invisible hand” quote, Tourism Economics President Adam Sacks said it has been his job to understand the invisible things that shape the economy. The first is the “insidious force” on inflation pulling everyone backward.
“If you look at the data, of course, inflation is still a problem,” he said. “We are still talking about it because it is still real.”
Core personal consumption expenditures, not including energy or food prices, are still above 3% year over year, even as the housing component becomes less important, he said. Goods and services have become more expensive, and that’s without looking at gas prices, which are up 45% since the start of 2026. All of this affects earnings, which is why inflation matters.
Adam Sacks, president of Tourism Economics, speaks at the Hotel Data Conference about the pressures consumers face due to ongoing inflation. (Bryan Wroten)
The U.S. had a great run from 2023 until early 2026 when earnings grew faster than inflation, but over the early part of this year, inflation grew faster, Sacks said. The June data shows they matched each other, but it’s leaving a mark, particularly on how people feel.
“Consumer sentiment has fallen precipitously over the last six months,” he said. “We've seen a rebound, so consumer sentiment is down, but it's not out.”
Feelings don’t 100% translate into spending, as the way people feel and how they behave have “completely diverged” and become almost fully untethered from one another, he said.
“In fact, if you look at the latest data, what's going on with real consumption compared to what's going on with sentiment? These things have almost no relationship anymore, as people continue to spend regardless of how miserable they are,” he said.
Consumer spending of late has been outpacing the rate of growth of income, and this means Americans are drawing down on their savings, Sacks said. That means that, for the near term, consumer spending will take a breather.
“You're almost certainly going to see consumers need to replenish those savings,” he said. “It's an unsustainable drawdown, given what we're seeing in inflation relative to income and what we're seeing in terms of spending relative to earnings.”
The good news is that cooling inflation is on the horizon, Sacks aid. It won’t be this month or even this year, but it should come down in 2027. The factors driving inflation will start to roll over next year, particularly the effects of the tariffs as they won’t have a year-over-year inflationary effect. Energy costs are also projected to come down.
That means the U.S. Federal Reserve is on course to hold interest rates at their current levels through the rest of the year and a good part of 2027 as well, he said.
The "insatiable appetite" for travel will continue to drive U.S. consumers to take leisure trips, Sacks said. They continue to prioritize travel over other types of spending, especially compared to durable goods, and they would cut other things from their budgets before they cut travel.
104 Super Bowls?
When FIFA President Gianni Infantino tried to explain the economic impact the World Cup matches would have on the U.S., he said it would be like having 104 Super Bowls. Jan Freitag, national director of hospitality analytics at CoStar Group, said that claim now needs a review.
Hotel occupancy on the books for World Cup match days in match markets in the months before was showing lower compared to the same time last year, and when STR published that information, “all hell broke loose,” Freitag said. Different media publications ran with the low occupancy numbers, but that wasn’t the whole story.
“I was like room rates are going to be robust, but it’s not going to be 104 Super Bowls, which is why I wasn’t invited to the final,” he said.
But then the days of the opening matches saw hotel occupancy levels jump about 20 percentage points in the week leading up to the matches, Freitag said. Everyone thought that people buying their match tickets a year out would buy their plane ticket six months out and then book their hotel rooms three months out.
“That was completely and utterly incorrect,” he said. “The booking window for this event really was not much different from any other leisure event.”
The World Cup matches were expected to be a hotel ADR event, and that’s how they played out, Freitag said. With a few exceptions, many host markets saw occupancies below 2025 because many corporate groups wanted to avoid the matches for their meetings and conferences.
“We clearly saw an impact that people traded, and Chicago, I think was the beneficiary on the other side,” he said.
There was a deceleration in some host markets from group demand and corporate America, but that was made up for in many instances with higher ADR growth, leading to stealthy RevPAR growth, Freitag said. That’s also why next year hotels in these markets will have tougher year-over-year comparisons once they reach June and July.
To fully evaluate the 104 Super Bowls claim, CoStar hospitality analysts looked at room revenue generation for Super Bowl week, which includes the four days before Super Bowl Sunday. They examined the last three regular Super Bowls, excluding the one in Las Vegas because of gambling and other factors.
They found the Super Bowl weeks generated $108 million to $110 million in room revenue over that four-day period, Freitag said. Multiplied by 104, that amounts to $11.3 billion.
The total room revenue generated for the relevant period of time for each of the 104 matches was $3.9 billion.
“After review, the 104 FIFA matches did not generate 104 Super Bowls,” he said. “Therefore, the promise was not kept. Therefore, red card for FIFA.”
DUHC&S | Strategic Hospitality Consulting & Advisory
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