Miami hotels weren’t full on game nights but still cashed in on World Cup

Miami hotels are getting a World Cup bump, but not because they are always overflowing with fans.

New data from CoStar, a commercial real estate information company, shows that on game nights Miami hotels increased their revenue per room from last year during the same time, even while occupancy rates only increased marginally or sometimes not at all.

Hotels have multiple measures to gauge success. Occupancy and average daily rate are two important ones. But they can also decide to jack up their rates and tolerate the consequence of not being full, betting the former will offset the latter. If room rates increase, that can still bump up the revenue per room brought in by hotels. That’s what South Florida hotels did during the World Cup, say hospitality analysts.

That strategy worked: The Miami area experienced one of the largest positive impacts on hotels’ performance on a game night among all group stage games during the FIFA 2026 World Cup when Brazil played Scotland.

Of 72 total group stage matches, held in the U.S., Mexico and Canada, Brazil versus Scotland at Hard Rock Stadium scored ninth highest in percentage increase in revenue received compared to the same date one year earlier. It surged by 90.2%. That was also the biggest percentage Miami hotels have notched in one night for the entire 2026.

The second-highest improvement at the first four games held in Miami Gardens in revenue received was the night of the Colombia versus Portugal match (June 27), in what was likely the world’s last chance to see Cristiano Ronaldo play in a World Cup. He’ll retire without ever having reached a final.

Among only U.S. hosts, Brazil versus Scotland was the third-best performer. Colombia taking on Portugal was tied for 11th, jumping 50.3% versus last year.

But exemplifying the hotels’ predicament, the Brazil versus Scotland game only brought an 11.8% increase in hotel occupancy from last year, totaling 77.2%, according to CoStar’s data. This means more than one in five rooms were still available on a night when the World Cup held one of its marquee matches. Meanwhile, the Colombia and Portugal game resulted in just a 0.2% increase, virtually no change, to 81.5%, CoStar’s data showed.

The first two matches at Hard Rock Stadium, Uruguay versus Saudi Arabia and Uruguay against Cape Verde generated revenue per room increases from the previous year of 10.2% and 18.7% respectively on game nights but actually saw declines in occupancy of 11.3% and 12.9%. This is a clear indication that price hikes offset occupancy loss.

Other hosts have experienced something similar. On the 72 nights of group stage matches, host cities saw declines in occupancy 44 times, compared to the same day one year earlier.

So, has the World Cup helped hotels in South Florida improve their performance compared to last year? The jury is still out.

Expectations in the tourism industry and among hotel executives were much higher than what’s been realized so far. Rates set several months ago were exorbitant and had to be brought down significantly. While still higher than usual and when compared to one year ago, they’re a lot less than they were earlier this year.

Visitors were also coming for shorter stays, often just for individual games, instead of weeks. During the initial June 11 to June 20 period, revenue per room rates fell in the Miami area on eight of ten nights compared to 2025 while occupancy declined on every one of the 10 nights, according to CoStar. There was only one match in Miami during that period. That statistic shows that hotels did worse with the World Cup than without it initially.

The second and third weeks however brought improvements.

The July 3 epic Round of 32 roller-coaster between Argentina and Cape Verde, in likely Leo Messi’s last appearance with his country in South Florida and his final World Cup produced a revenue per room increase of 40.2% over last year.

That was only 10th among 16 matches in that round, and it was 18th out of 28 knock-out stage matches CoStar has analyzed so far. Its data goes through July 11.

The July 11 Norway versus England quarterfinal did better as the Viking Row took over South Florida, producing a bump of 63.7% in revenue per room over last year. That ranks 8th out of 28 matches.