Fifa mass book hotel rooms at World Cup host – before being forced to cancel 75 per cent of them over lack of interest
FIFA has left hotels across the US in the lurch after mass booking rooms in host cities before cancelling the majority of them.
One host city hit particularly hard by Fifa’s movements ahead of the World Cup has been Kansas City, Missouri.
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Per the Kansas City Star, Fifa reserved up to 5000 rooms per night for many of the evenings that its officials and business partners would be in town.
That means that Fifa will have reserved tens of thousands of rooms across the month-long tournament in the city alone.
But as soccer’s greatest international tournament drew closer, the governing body canceled the majority of those reservations.
They are not alone either in the US with hotel bookings slumping nation wide only weeks before from the World Cup.
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Several cities have reported that hotel bookings are actually lower than in previous years, with the World Cup having the opposite desired impact.
Visit KC, which helped local hotels negotiate contracts with FIFA, has now confirmed that Fifa canceled 75% of the rooms it had originally blocked.
A spokesperson for Visit KC, Makenzie Wolters, acknowledged to the KCS that Fifa’s cancellations were ‘abnormally large’.
Wolters said, “We recognize that it has put many of our hotel partners in a difficult position, but we are optimistic as we start to see more positive travel data for Kansas City.”
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Walker Swan, general manager for Crowne Plaza hotel in downtown Kansas City, reiterated the same to the outlet.
Swan said, “It was a lot, if I’m speaking honestly. Without getting into specifics, it was a majority of the rooms that they had blocked.”
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Interestingly, Fifa was also able to drop most of those rooms without paying a cancellation fee.
Swan, who is also the President of the Hotel and Lodging Association of Greater Kansas City, added that it has played a big part in local room reservation shortfall.
Visit KC’s spokesperson confirmed that Fifa’s initial reservations in the city were 5,000 rooms for peak nights.
With Kansas City due to host six games in the 2026 World Cup, that is at the very least 30,000 rooms reserved.
Simple maths dictates that around 22,000 rooms will have been given back to local hotels with only weeks to go following the cancellations.
It does not bode well for a World Cup that is already struggling to sell tickets for several games with just days to go.
