world cup 2026: lessons vancouver learned and what comes next
12 minute read
world cup fans take in granville street in vancouver on july 7.
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vancouver streets and restaurant patios near world cup fan zones have largely been electric for the last four weeks, exceeding many expectations for how this city would embrace being a fifa host.
before the seventh and final soccer game at b.c. place this week, politicians tried to bottle that enthusiasm by rushing to extend fifa-related bylaw changes until summer’s end: vancouver city council promised granville street could remain a pedestrian zone and the province extended temporary restaurant patio approvals.
but without large-screen tvs showing endless footie matches, and throngs of tourists in their home-country jerseys, can vancouver keep up the party vibe?
most businesses on granville mall were keen to see the extension of the pedestrian zone, and this summer will provide clarity on whether the street can continue to attract visitors without an international event in the city, said jane talbot, president of downtown van.
“i’ve always believed that granville street can become an incredible public gathering place, and fifa gave us that real world demonstration,” said talbot, whose organization created the photo booths and other activities on the pedestrian-only street.
but she tempered expectations for after the footie fans leave town: “i want to be really clear: it is not going to be exactly as it was during the fifa world cup. there’s no way that we expect that level of traffic.”
other questions to consider before vancouver hosts another large event, experts say, is how to help businesses, such as retail stores and restaurants, capitalize on that success — especially those not adjacent to the popular watch parties.
“fan zones were intense. the (restaurants) said my business is 50, 60 per cent over where it was last year,” said ian tostenson, president of the b.c. restaurant and food services association.
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that wasn’t the case, though, for many eateries and bars on the outskirts of those popular areas.
“we have to make sure — and i don’t know what the answer to this is yet — but if we create these public spaces, we want to make sure that if you’re off the beaten track a bit, that you’re going to benefit as well,” tostenson said.
other businesses that didn’t appear to benefit from the tournament were hotels, where bookings were unexpectedly down in both canadian host cities, vancouver and toronto. destination vancouver says that as of june 27 — more than two weeks into the tournament — just 75 per cent of the city’s hotel rooms were full, compared with 91 per cent in june 2025.
“in comparison to this time last year, we’ve seen about half the amount of bookings that we would typically have seen in the later part of june and july,” said rhian charette, manager of the hostelling international locations in the west end and jericho beach.
“it’s really hurt us.”
science world is decorated as a world cup match ball.
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on the other hand, nearly three-quarters of the 604 metro vancouver residents polled by the research co. between june 30 and july 2 said they believed that the cup had a positive impact on b.c. and vancouver, and that it would promote tourism and economic development.
the final costs and revenue from hosting seven cup games in vancouver between june 13 and july 7 are still to be tallied. so for now businesses and residents are left wondering if they feel like it was all worth it.
“oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. let me say it one more time: yes!” laughed talbot of the downtown business improvement association. “i don’t want to suggest that fifa changed downtown. i think, though, that it reminded us of what our downtown can be.”
royce chwin, president of destination vancouver, agrees with that rosy outlook — as long as officials work hard to build off marketing successes such as the tsn/ctv broadcast desk overlooking vancouver harbour and science world dressed up as a soccer ball.
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“it will be worth it if … we can harness this momentum that we have created — because the city showed up so incredibly well out of the 16 (host) cities — and we do something with it,” chwin said. “(but) if we ride on the coattails of the beautiful city in the beautiful space, then we will have squandered the opportunity in the investment.”
he added: “i think there’s a ton of learnings to come out of this.”
andy yan, director of simon fraser university’s city program, said capitalizing on those learnings may require new government investments in initiatives like music festivals, cultural programs and social infrastructure to maintain the energy created during the cup.
“with the end of fifa, what will fill this vacuum?” he asked. “what do we do now?”
postmedia news spoke to multiple people to gather opinions on what’s next for the city after the cup:
money
the crowd at the pne fan festival. photo: nick procaylo
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the provincial government estimates 350,000 people attended the seven matches at b.c. place, and 330,000 people visited the pne’s fan festival between june 11 and 28, in addition to the thousands at other watch parties in downtown vancouver, granville island, north vancouver and elsewhere.
it isn’t clear how many of those are out-of-town visitors who spent additional money on lodging and food, but both talbot and chwin believe the number of tourists will be high when official data is in.
according to adyen, a financial technology company that processes credit card payments, tourist spending in vancouver went up 15 per cent between june 13 and july 7 compared with the preceding three weeks in may and june. when asked if 15 per cent is a big jump while the city hosted the world’s largest sporting event, adyen’s canada country manager sander meijers said it would be significant for proprietors seeing the extra revenue.
anecdotal evidence suggests those tourists were in vancouver specifically for the cup because of the businesses that saw increased sales, he said.
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“fifty per cent more in restaurants and 100 per cent more in sports-related clothing stores,” meijers said. “you can start seeing the pattern that the world cup tourism has definitely made an impact.”
other types of companies that saw a boost in sales, according the province, include tattoo parlours putting maple leaf ink on patriotic patrons and retailers that sell tvs.
but rather than riding the cup wave, some businesses say they were swallowed up: some were quiet because they were outside the fan zones, while others inside the popular areas said their regular customers couldn’t reach them.
on granville mall, retailers gave “mixed reports,” talbot said. “we’re hearing that foot traffic definitely increased, but early on it hasn’t yet translated into sales.”
she cautioned, though, that the data hasn’t yet been tabulated to truly know how retailers fared.
when it comes to the entire province, the cup is expected to generate one million new tourists, $1 billion in visitor spending and $900 million in labour income over the next five years, b.c. tourism minister anne kang told postmedia in an email this week.
chwin was hesitant to put a dollar value on the future tourism boost stemming from the cup. but he noted that after vancouver hosted the 2010 winter olympics, there was a jump in overnight visitors that lasted until 2019.
“so we have a track record,” he said. “and we expect something similar.”
there are opportunities to make the cup exposure “pay off,” such as other large sports organizations opting to stage future tournaments here, chwin added: “now the job is to … capitalize on that exposure in the years to come, and to land those events.”
ottawa’s office of the parliamentary budget officer in may estimated canada’s price tag to stage the tournament was $1.1 billion, with vancouver’s hosting costs pegged at $578 million.
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nearly two-thirds of canadians were concerned about the use of taxpayer funds for this event, according to a leger poll of 1,505 people conducted this week. at the same time, an even higher percentage of respondents said they supported hosting the tournament.
hotels
manager rhian charette at hostelling international’s vancouver west end location. photo: jason payne
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bek shamsiev, manager of the azur legacy hotel in downtown vancouver, said his bookings in june were down 20 per cent compared with the same month in 2025.
“july is looking much better but still behind by 10 per cent compared to july 2025,” he said wednesday.
that’s in keeping with destination vancouver’s finding that, as of june 27, hotel occupancy was 16 percentage points below the same period last year. and costar, a company that tracks hotel bookings, said on july 6 that toronto and vancouver both had occupancy declines during the tournament.
chwin said there are multiple reasons to potentially explain why hotel rooms are empty: higher costs for everything from flights to world cup tickets; geopolitical tensions curtailing travel; fifa cancelling thousands of pre-booked rooms; and business travellers and non-soccer tourists staying away until the tournament ends.
charette said the two hostels she manages would typically be at 90 per cent capacity in the summer but are sitting at about half that right now, in part because some guests cancelled due to festivals and other events being rescheduled during the cup. she’s critical of how officials initially hyped the idea that there would be a shortage of hotel rooms and prices would be sky-high during the tournament.
“i don’t actually believe the messaging was very clear,” she said. “i think that deterred some people.”
chwin agreed that communication could have been better.
he noted fifa executives and others said hosting the cup would be like staging “multiple super bowls,” but that promise was made before understanding the impact of significant changes made for this year’s tournament: it was the first time it was held in 16 cities across three countries and multiple time zones, a very different experience from 2022 when all games were in qatar.
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“there’s not a reasonable base of comparison because you’re not localizing the business, you’re spreading it all over the continent,” chwin said. “were expectations perhaps overblown? maybe that was the case.”
he pointed out one positive for hoteliers: the average daily rate in late june was about $500, 30 per cent higher than the same time frame in 2025.
kang said hotel occupancy rates are “trending upwards” in july and august, putting them closer to 2025 numbers. she referred specific questions about hotels to destination vancouver and the b.c. hotel association. an association spokesperson, though, wouldn’t comment until seeing “complete booking data later this summer.”
chwin said that while many events were paused during the tournament, 10 major conferences are scheduled in vancouver over the next few months, and hotel occupancy is expected to reach 90 per cent this summer.
restaurants
iani makris, with daughters nefeli, 5, left, and two-year-old maelle, co-owns anatoli souvlaki near canada soccer house in north vancouver. photo: lori culbert
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on monday, the province announced restaurants granted temporary patio approvals during the cup can now keep them open until summer’s end.
ideally, tostenson said, restaurants and bars can find ways to keep patrons coming, perhaps through food specials or community events, or dine-out themes on certain evenings.
“what can we do as an industry to activate these things and make it interesting for people to still come out, because we are going to see, obviously, a downturn,” he said.
“we realize what the possibilities are. now we’ve just got to go get them.”
the biggest challenge may be how to include restaurants on the edge of popular areas, so they can also be part of the trend.
anatoli souvlaki, a popular greek restaurant, sits across the street from canada soccer house, a large fenced-off fan zone in north van’s shipyards district. restaurants inside were booming, but outside the perimeter anatoli’s was quieter than usual because its clientele didn’t want to battle the congestion.
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“we experienced an influx of customers when canada was playing,” said co-owner iani makris. “however, our regulars were looking to stay away.”
overall, eateries across the province stocked more alcohol in june, according to the b.c. liquor distribution branch: sales to restaurants, bars and pubs between may 31 and june 27 were $51.5 million, which was $5 million, or 11 per cent higher, than in june 2025, a spokesperson said.
granville strip
jane talbot, president of downtown van, on granville street in vancouver on july 9. photo: arlen redekop
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it isn’t clear yet what exactly will happen on granville street after the cup ends july 19.
it also isn’t clear how the $4.74 million set aside to keep it open for seven more weeks will be spent, beyond the general plan to dole out portions of the money to the city for sanitation and engineering, vancouver police for security, and downtown van for activities.
vancouver mayor ken sim called a special meeting of city council on july 2 to get the vote passed so the city could immediately build on the “overwhelming success” of the pedestrian strip. but coun. pete fry voted against the plan, arguing for more financial clarity.
“we don’t really know what an activation without a world cup, and the tens-of-thousands of visitors downtown, would possibly look like,” fry added.
one week after the vote, talbot said her organization was still finalizing plans for the street post-cup and couldn’t share specifics yet.
“we see an opportunity to create a more vibrant daytime destination that welcomes families, gives retailers a boost like our bars and restaurants have experienced, and celebrates arts, culture, and public spaces in new ways,” she said thursday.
“the change will start on week one, but we’ll have an evolution over the seven weeks.”
the street is primarily known for its bars and nightclubs, and has in recent years been the site of disorder and unruliness, especially in the evenings.
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granville’s needs are “urgent and acute,” which made it hard for businesses to conceptualize making it a pedestrian strip — until witnessing the success of the last four weeks, talbot said.
downtown van agreed to support extending the car-free idea as long as there was funding for additional police, she added.
talbot is optimistic this summer’s experiment will help carve out future plans for granville street.
“there will be learnings about what worked well, what can be improved on for next time and what the street can do in terms of supporting pedestrianization.”
totenson said restaurants and bars on granville street were also in favour of extending the pedestrian strip, as long as it came with additional police. despite large crowds and increased alcohol sales, he noted, there were few reported problems on the strip, which had an extensive number of police officers assigned to it during the tournament.
sarah blyth-gerszak, who runs the overdose prevention society in vancouver’s downtown eastside, said during the tournament that some people were “pushed around with no place to go” by authorities.
she isn’t opposed to the city hosting the cup, noting many people in her community enjoyed watching the games on tv. she hopes, though, that the international media attention on vancouver’s insufficient amount of social housing will lead to change.
“big events like this i hope draw attention on that: in order to be a good community, you treat your homeless well,” blyth-gerszak said.
long-term impact
destination vancouver president and ceo royce chwin. photo: jason payne
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the final chapter of how hosting the cup will impact vancouver has, of course, not been written yet.
talbot argued the cup exceeded expectations by making “the downtown come alive in ways we haven’t experienced in years,” and believes more people will be lured here by the international media exposure during the planet’s most-watched sporting event.
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“one of the things i think about a lot is how visible vancouver was on the world stage, and how many people saw the spirit of our city,” she said. “i believe they’ll come and that will help our businesses.”
chwin said one lesson to ponder is how much the city benefits from staging a giant event in the summer, when it tends to be busy with cruise ship passengers and convention-goers. he noted the 2010 olympics were held in february, typically a less-busy time for hotels and restaurants.
“this really was an interesting experiment of holding a massive event during normally a very busy part of the year for vancouver, and what it does to change travelling dynamics and displace existing business,” he said.
he believes vancouver is a very experienced host and successfully staged this tournament, but added: “we’ll learn from this in terms of when we’re being sold the next major event.”
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