Snohomish County tourism rates remain more tepid than a boom for the World Cup
Published 5:09 pm Wednesday, June 17, 2026
EVERETT — While tourism expectations were mixed leading up to the FIFA World Cup, officials in the county are cautiously optimistic as the first week of games wraps up.
Despite FIFA’s report in April that more than five million tickets were sold, those numbers did not seem to result in equivalent hotel bookings, according to an American Hotel and Lodging Association report published the same month. Among the report’s respondents, just under 80% said hotel bookings were on track to be below initial forecasts.
Seattle is set to host six matches at Lumen Field, the first of which occurred Monday. It’s been hard for officials to gauge how those events will translate to tourism in their county, said Grace Yoo, Snohomish County’s chief economic development officer.
“We were going off of kind of hotel stays and visits by folks who came during the Qatar World Cup. That said, we’re in a very different situation with the World Cup this year,” she said.
Yoo cited three reasons complicating 2026 rates. First of which is that instead of being hosted by one country, the 2026 tournament is spread across three countries: Canada, Mexico and the United States.
“It’s hard to predict overnight stays for that model, because it rarely happens,” she said. “How much of the stays will actually come to us here in Snohomish County?”
Other reasons include FIFA’s switch to dynamic pricing, which fluctuates based on demand, and global tensions.
“Some of the rhetoric coming out of the federal government has not been conducive to attracting new visitors, especially from overseas and promoting cross-border travel,” Yoo said.
Officials will get a better picture of what this means for the tourism industry in July at the earliest, Yoo said. But, anecdotal evidence from travelers at previous fan zone events in Everett, Yoo said, has made her more optimistic.
“It’s hard for me to be entirely optimistic given those circumstances,” she added.
For Hotel Indigo, located on the Everett waterfront, it’s been a rollercoaster as far as expectations. After rolling back the hotel’s initial restrictions to ensure adequate World Cup accommodations, bookings began to pick up, said Jordan Pszonka, the hotel’s acting general manager.
“I think for a long time people were avoiding Seattle, just in general,” she said. “Groups weren’t wanting to book in June, even here, because rates were so high, so your normal travelers aren’t wanting to stay downtown during all this ruckus. So that’s where I think our bookings are coming from now.”
The hotel has averaged 86% occupancy for the first two weeks of the month, which is strong compared to previous Junes, Pszonka said.
“I think everyone originally thought it was going to be like this blockbuster month and blow every other month out of the water that we’ve ever had. It’s definitely not that,” she said. “We’re well above where we were last year, but nothing like we originally thought.”
While bookings have thinned out, other World Cup events have garnered large crowds. The first half of Everett’s Waterfront Watch Parties brought thousands to Boxcar Park.
The Mexico vs. South Africa watch party on June 11 had around 1,500 attendees, while the United States vs. Paraguay match tripled the previous day’s number with 4,500 attendees, said Catherine Soper, the Port of Everett’s chief of business development and tourism, in an email.
“You could feel the energy of the beautiful game across the waterfront, from the surrounding businesses to the Fan Zone at Boxcar Park,” she said.
The port expects the upcoming watch parties on Thursday and Friday to continue the high attendance, Soper said. Doors open at 4 p.m. Thursday for the Mexico vs. South Korea watch party and at 10 a.m. Friday for the United States vs. Australia.
Yoo recomends soccer fans visit the Discover Snohomish County website to learn more about World Cup events.
Jenna Millikan: 425-339-3035; jenna.millikan@heraldnet.com; X: @JennaMillikan
