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An organization representing Toronto hotels says demand for accommodations in the city is down as more rooms stood empty during the first two weeks of the World Cup than in the same time last year.
Sara Anghel, president of the Greater Toronto Hotel Association, says she’s optimistic the international soccer tournament will be a boon to the city’s hotel industry in the years to come, but with the World Cup underway, hotels haven’t been seeing immediate benefits.
Anghel says 82 per cent of hotel rooms were occupied in the second week of June — when Toronto hosted Canada’s first match of the tournament — down from 83 per cent in the same period last year.
There was a much more significant decline in the third week of June, when Anghel says the hotel occupancy rate dropped to 72 per cent, compared with 86 per cent last year.
Small stadium among contributing factors: GTHA
She says a number of factors have contributed to the decrease in bookings.
One of them, she says, is that Toronto’s World Cup stadium has the lowest capacity with only 45,000 seats, limiting the number of fans who can buy tickets.
Anghel also pointed to FIFA’s decision this spring to release thousands of hotel bookings across North America, including Toronto, which suddenly brought rooms back onto the market.
FIFA has cancelled thousands of its hotel reservations in Toronto and Vancouver. Experts say the cancellations are routine as they adjust for expected staff numbers. CBC’s Michelle Song breaks down what this could mean for fans and why experts are saying hotel prices may not change significantly.
June is usually a busy month for Toronto’s hotels as the city plays host to corporate conventions and an influx of business travellers, Anghel said, but these visitors may be staying home or rescheduling conferences to avoid the World Cup crowds.
This may be the reason the hotel industry saw a strong May ahead of the tournament, with a 82 per cent occupancy rate that was up two percentage points from last year, Anghel said.
Hotel bookings down in other host cities
Hotels in some of the other host cities have also seen bookings fall below typical levels.
Ahead of the tournament, Destination Vancouver said room bookings in the city were down 20 per cent in June compared with the same time in 2025.
Nearly 80 per cent of hoteliers surveyed in Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Seattle by the American Hotel & Lodging Association said they were seeing bookings lag behind a typical summer.
With the World Cup this year spread out across 16 host cities in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, Anghel says Toronto hotels weren’t expecting a “massive boom” of bookings.
“I think that everyone (was) plugging along with the expectation that it was going to be OK, but not great,” she said.
“Still, the games are amazing for the city. It’s put us on this international stage. The city is alive and we’ve just been so excited to have FIFA here.”
Anghel said she hopes the international attention Toronto receives from the tournament will entice more travellers to visit in the near future, and “provide a few years of legacy advantages” for the city’s hotels.
As for July and August to come, Anghel said it’s too soon to give a definitive forecast but she anticipates it will be a “good summer for Toronto hotels.”
