The majority opinion is that Mexico’s experience as World Cup host deserves a heartfelt thumbs-up. But in terms of meeting the rosy expectations of a financial windfall, it’s turning out to be a huge disappointment, at least according to preliminary reports.
New studies indicate that the World Cup benefits fell short of expectations for tourism, hotel occupancy, airline passengers and financial gain.
Deloitte report: Mexico’s economic benefits from hosting World Cup could reach US $2.73B
The most notable shortfall was in the number of visitors to the country.
For more than two years, Mexican government authorities, the Mexican Football Federation and even FIFA representatives anticipated that the tournament would bring up to 5.5 million additional tourists during the World Cup.
The business consulting firm Deloitte and the economy rater Moody’s later injected some reality into the picture by putting the numbers between 800,000 and 836,000 new visitors, less than 20% of the official predictions.
Now, a study by the National Business Council (CNET) and the Advanced Research Center for Sustainable Tourism Anáhuac Cancún (STARC) estimates that Mexico welcomed only around 175,000 additional international tourists for the World Cup — no less than 5.3 million short of what the public was led to believe.
“We would have to ask the government where they got that data, but it was certainly too high,” head of CNET Antonio Cosío said at a press conference on July 9, four days after Mexico held its last World Cup match.
Airline passenger traffic also fell short of expectations. In a radio interview with Imagen, head of Mexico City International Airport (AICM) Admiral Juan José Padilla Olmos said that the airport handled 3.55 million passengers in June, the first month of the tournament — down 10% to 15% from the figure registered last year, without a World Cup. In fact, it was the slowest June for AICM passenger traffic in the last three years.
Hotel occupancy was also down — not only from World Cup forecasts but from last year as well. The CNET and STARC Anáhuac report revealed that hotel occupancy decreased compared to June 2025 in all three Mexican World Cup host cities.
Hotel occupancy in Mexico City, which hosted five games, was reported at 56.5%, 2% lower than the same period last year. Meanwhile, hotel occupancy in Guadalajara, the site of four games, stood at 56%, down 7% compared to last year.
Finally, in Monterrey, which hosted four games, hotel occupancy reached 53.5%, 5.8% lower than in the same period of 2025.
Experts attributed part of the decline to habitual business travelers who avoided host cities due to potential disruptions caused by the matches. However, Bloomberg reported that hotels managed to increase their revenue via rate hikes of between 39.8% and 46.7%.
Money did flow into Mexico during its World Cup hosting season, but less than hoped. According to the Confederation of National Chambers of Commerce, Services and Tourism (Concanaco Servytur), the World Cup generated an economic impact in Mexico of between US $2.57 billion and US $2.86 billion.
Although the economic impact wasn’t as high as expected, a FIFA representative expressed to the news source EFE its satisfaction with the tournament’s organization in Mexico.
Moreover, head of STARC Francisco Madrid said that despite the disappointing figures his organization has provided, the greatest legacy of the World Cup might not be in the number of tourists or dollars, but in the enormous international exposure that Mexico gained as a tourist destination after several years with limited federal investment in tourism promotion.
With reports from Latinus, López Dorigaz, Excélsior and Animal Político
