Miami, Fort Lauderdale hotels starting to score as World Cup enters last phase

South Florida hotels are finally seeing a boost from the World Cup.

In the third week of the tournament, from June 28 to July 4, Miami hotels saw an increase in occupancy on four of the seven nights, compared to the same period last year.

Room rates rose by double digits each day. Prices ranged from $179 to $286.

That’s notable because only one game was played at Hard Rock Stadium over that time, the July 3 epic roller-coaster between Lionel Messi’s Argentina and underdog Cape Verde.

Plenty of rooms remain available, and after England plays Norway on Saturday, the Miami area only hosts one more game, on July 18. Rates are not nearly as high as they were earlier in the year. Visitors are coming for shorter stays, often just for individual games. Deals are out there. But hotels in Miami or Fort Lauderdale aren’t as desperate now to cut them.

Their performance in the third week is a vast improvement from the initial June 11 to June 20 period when hotel occupancy declined on every one of 10 nights when compared to the same period in 2025.

During the third week, occupancy spanned from 56% to 79%. The high occurred the night of the Argentina versus Cape Verde match, also the case for average daily rate.

All figures come from data provided to the Miami Herald by the firm CoStar. The CoStar Group, a commercial real estate information company, acquired top hospitality analytics firm Smith Travel Research in 2019 and has since closely analyzed the hotel industry.

While improving, the occupancy rates are far from extraordinary. On the best night, one in five hotel rooms were available. Changes over the seven days ranged from a drop of 5% to an increase of 2%.

The stronger performance was largely because hotels kept rates higher than they did in past years, according to industry analysts, and were willing to tolerate the consequence of not being full.

“The improvement in Miami hotels continues to be on the rate with a little bit from occupancy,” said Jan Freitag, national director, hospitality analytics at the CoStar Group, in an interview with the Miami Herald.

The decision by hotels to live with occupancy rates lower than expected if that meant they could raise rates is why revenue per available room, called RevPAR, is an important number for travelers to understand. The measure, a combination of occupancy with daily rate, is the most important one hotels use to assess their performance. If hotels’ RevPAR is rising, that means they are doing well and unlikely to offer major discounts or deals.

Between June 28 to July 4, Miami hotels’ RevPAR rose on all seven days, between 11% and 42%, “very robust numbers,” said Freitag. That’s a big improvement from the initial June 11 to June 20 period when the measure fell on eight of ten days.

Fort Lauderdale hotels are showing similar trends. In some ways, they are showing more growth. In the third week, all seven nights posted increases in occupancy, compared to the same period in 2025. Each night showed a jump in RevPAR, too.

Average daily rates at hotels there went between $143 and $213.

South Florida hotels also enjoyed a strong week 2, from June 21 to June 27. In that time, Hard Rock Stadium hosted Brazil versus Scotland and Colombia against Portugal, two of the most attractive group stage matches in the entire tournament.

At Miami hotels, RevPAR rose each of those seven nights. On June 24, when Brazil played Scotland, it shot up 90%.

That’s the highest number Miami hotels have posted in all of 2026, said Chantal Wu, senior director of hospitality market analytics for CoStar, covering the Southeast U.S. region, in an interview with the Herald.

“We’re seeing last minute demand that’s driving up rate growth,” she said.