World Cup Bump Won't Make Up for Tourism Drop as HANYC Calls on City Council to Cut Tourist Tax

NEW YORK, NY (09/30/2026) (readMedia)-- At today's City Council hearing assessing the economic impact of World Cup, Vijay Dandapani, President and CEO of the Hotel Association of New York, will highlight the many challenges facing an already struggling hotel industry despite a small bump from World Cup bookings. Dandapani will call on the Council to temporarily lower the city's hotel occupancy tax, currently among the highest of major cities in the country, and provide the cornerstone of the city's tourism economy with much-needed relief. He will emphasize that the city's tax on tourists has undermined the hotel industry's ability to attract visitors and inhibited its ability to fully capitalize on the economic opportunities presented by World Cup.

After many months of extremely disappointing hotel bookings for the tournament period, with a final projection that hotels would only bring in half of what FIFA had anticipated, hotels ended up with an unexpected surge in visitors for the final matches. Those last minute bookings generated $74 million, bringing total incremental hotel revenue closer to initial estimates. This turnaround was likely the result of Spain and Argentina facing far fewer barriers to entering the country compared to other countries in the playoffs.

But the slight bump in World Cup profits is not enough for the hotel industry-and the 40,000 hotel workers, nearly 400,000 hospitality workers, bars, restaurants, small businesses, and cultural institutions that depend on it-to offset industry headwinds. Trump immigration policies continue to drive essential international tourists away, threatening the hotel industry and the billions in revenue it generates to help fund essential services for the city. 400,000 fewer international tourists, who spend four times that of domestic visitors, came to New York last year. Trump's trade war with Canada, typically one of the largest hotel markets, resulted in 26% fewer Canadians coming to the city.

Hotels are also contending with inflation, tariffs, slower revenue growth, and high operating costs while struggling to recover from pandemic losses. Last year, city hotels had 12.9% fewer workers, 1.6M fewer visitors, and 15.9% of hotel rooms left unoccupied compared to 2019. Hotel bookings for the remainder of 2026, and all but one month of the year so far, trail pre-pandemic levels. The revenue per available room (RevPar) when adjusted for inflation was higher for only four of the first eight months of this year, including the months of the tournament. Similarly, last year's inflation adjusted RevPar was ahead of 2019 for only four months of the year.

World Cup provided hotels with a modest bump in revenue during what is otherwise a devastating time for the industry. But it wasn't enough. Temporarily lowering the hotel occupancy tax, a tax on tourists, will help draw visitors back to stay and spend in our city. This strategy works. As a recent Journal of Tourism paper concludes, "it may be more revenue enhancing to restrict tax rates on lodging so as to encourage tourism". Now that the World Cup is in the rearview, the City Council must do everything it can, like reducing the enormous tax burden on hotels, to ensure the hotel industry can take full advantage of future major tourism events.

"In the wake of World Cup, the City must take a hard look at how federal policies are affecting our industry and the tourism economy it helps support. Leaders must prioritize attracting visitors, particularly international tourists, and make clear that New York City remains a welcoming destination for people from around the world, regardless of federal policies that may discourage them from visiting. While hotels gained about what was expected from World Cup, we were and continue to be hit hard by the international tourism slump and other economic challenges. Relief from the city would have allowed us to maximize the benefits from the once-in-a-generation tournament," said Vijay Dandapani, President and CEO of HANYC. "If we want to bring international visitors back, protect hotel and hospitality jobs, and ensure New York is positioned to benefit from future tourism opportunities, the City must give our industry the relief it needs now by lowering the tax on tourists."