By admin 
With the World Cup coming to Kansas City this summer, the international governing body for the sport reserved up to 5,000 hotel rooms a night for many of the nights that the organization’s officials and business partners would be in town.
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That means FIFA originally requested local hotels to reserve tens of thousands of room nights for the duration of the tournament that were meant for just the organization.
But as the event drew closer, FIFA canceled the majority of those reservations — leaving local hotel managers to scramble to fill rooms this summer that they had hoped were already spoken for.
Walker Swan, general manager for Crowne Plaza hotel in downtown Kansas City, said he never expects a group to use all of the rooms they block for major events. But FIFA’s cancellation was larger than usual.
“It was a lot, if I’m speaking honestly,” said Swan, who is also the president for the Hotel and Lodging Association of Greater Kansas City. “Without getting into specifics, it was a majority of the rooms that they had blocked,” he added.
FIFA’s 5,000 rooms per night would have been significant. To put that into perspective, that amounts to nearly 14% of the 36,000-plus hotel rooms in the Kansas City metro each night.
The global soccer organization was also able to drop most of those rooms without paying a cancellation fee, a perk that is not always granted to organizations blocking off a large number of rooms.
Altogether, the cancellations likely means millions of dollars worth of unrealized spending in the metro. It’s seemingly another example of how the international soccer tournament may not live up to lofty expectations of FIFA or public officials who promised an economic boom for host cities, like Kansas City.
FIFA’s cancellations were a shock to the local hotel system. Swan said FIFA’s cancellations are a major driver for why the local hotel industry is facing a room reservation shortfall during the biggest sporting event in the world.
In a recent survey, Kansas City hotel managers reported to the national American Hotel and Lodging Association that they were realizing fewer bookings during the World Cup than a typical summer.
Visit KC, which helped local hotels negotiate contracts with FIFA for reservations, confirmed that the organization canceled 75% of the room nights it had originally blocked. But the tourism group did not provide a total number of rooms that were originally booked by FIFA throughout the duration of the tournament.
Makenzie Wolters, a spokesperson for Visit KC, said FIFA’s cancellations were “abnormally large,” but similar to what other World Cup host cities experienced in the lead up to the tournament that kicks off on Thursday.
“We recognize that it has put many of our hotel partners in a difficult position, but we are optimistic as we start to see more positive travel data for Kansas City,” Wolters said.
Cancellations
It’s not entirely clear just how many rooms FIFA officials had blocked, but it was likely in the tens of thousands of rooms for the duration of the tournament.
Wolters said FIFA had originally reserved 5,000 rooms for peak nights — presumably the nights of the six matches in Kansas City — but fewer than that for other nights they would stay in the city. Those rooms were meant for FIFA’s visiting staff, business partners and international dignitaries, she said.
Just accounting for the six matches, 5,000 rooms a night would have totaled 30,000 room reservations for those nights. FIFA likely had requested even more.
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Quick math suggests that more than 22,000 rooms were released back to the hotels just a few months before the tournament.
How much FIFA would have paid local hotels for these rooms is not known. Wolters said that information is proprietary information for each of the hotels that entered contracts with FIFA.
FIFA also didn’t have to compensate the hotels for the cancellations. Wolters said that’s not normally the case for organizations reserving blocks of rooms for large events in Kansas City.
“Every group, hotel and contract is unique, but other meeting and convention groups typically have more mutually agreeable terms and conditions with specifics on attrition and cancellation fees included,” Wolters said. “Many of these events also have an established attendance history that the hotel industry can use as a benchmark and forecast to.”
Filling the gap
It’s no secret that the booking surge hotels had hoped to see did not initially come to fruition. Local hotel leaders have said they’ve seen increased bookings around the six match days in Kansas City, but not much in between.
Swan said his hotel has seen an influx of bookings in recent weeks as the global soccer tournament’s kickoff draws nearer.
“We’re not full yet but the anticipation is that we will fill up,” Swan said. “The night before and the game nights is where we are seeing our highest occupancy.”
But Swan also gave credence to hotels that have reported fewer bookings than a normal summer because of fewer conventions and other events in the city.
The Crowne Plaza hotel is located across the street from the Kansas City Convention Center and just a few blocks from the T-Mobile Center, which often hosts conventions, concerts and other events in the summer.
However, the World Cup seems to have scared many of those other events away.
Swan said his hotel is mostly seeing bookings related to the soccer tournament, and fewer bookings for any other convention or concert.
“Summer is typically very busy and we’ve seen some stronger (summers),” Swan said. “Now we’re just hoping to book as many as we can.”
Still, Swan said he’s optimistic that the tournament will provide a boost to the local economy. He commended the city’s efforts to make the area as welcoming as possible for incoming visitors. He pointed to the official fan festival and the city’s efforts to keep transportation affordable.
Swan said his colleagues in Seattle, another host city for the World Cup, were also impressed with Kansas City’s airport making a great first impression by decorating the terminal to highlight the tournament.
“There are a lot of really great things that the city has done … creating excitement and high energy around the World Cup matches,” Swan said.
Read more FIFA booked tens of thousands of KC hotel rooms for World Cup, then canceled 75%