Kansas City can boast about an 88% increase in year-over-year revenue for short-term rentals due to the World Cup but not because of an increase in demand.
According to a study by AirDNA, a data analytics platform for short-term rentals, the increase came from hiked-up prices.
The number of available rentals surged 48% over last year. But since demand was only up 20%, occupancy rates declined.
On game days and the nights before a game, demand rose 43% year over year. But outside of the game-day window, demand was up just 6% year over year.
But the rentals still made money — and, compared to other host cities, a lot of it. The smallest World Cup host city, despite the increase in available rentals, was still considered a supply-constrained market.
Prices for rentals went up more than 60% year over year around the games, and were up more than 40% year over year on surrounding dates.
Those price increases were especially pronounced during a few games. For Kansas City’s opening game, which featured two teams with base caps around Kansas City – Algeria versus Argentina – the price increased 103% year over year. Occupancy increased just 24%.
For the Netherlands versus Tunisia, occupancy decreased year over year by 2%. But the prices? Up by 78%.
Hotels in Kansas City, Kansas, meanwhile, reported their top 10 highest revenue days in history, according to the city’s visitors bureau. The quarterfinal match on July 11 set a record for Kansas City, Kansas, with $560,577 in revenue marking the highest hotel revenue day ever recorded in the city.
On the Missouri side, official data isn’t out yet. But anecdotally, Stephanie Porter, the director of sales and marketing for The Fontaine Hotel on the Plaza, said her hotel did pretty well, too.
“We had a lot of media come in and out, we had a lot of transient guests just wanting to go to some of the things that were going on,” Porter said. “Not necessarily the games, but they would go to some of the activities that were taking place, like some of the different watch parties.”
She said Mexico fans stayed at the hotel to attend watch parties and just to be in one of the host cities. Mexico did not play in Kansas City.
Reporting from the The Kansas City Star found that other hotels in the city fared well, too. However, Andrea O’Hara, executive director for the Hotel and Lodging Association of Greater Kansas City, told the Star that while hotels in popular areas of the city mostly sold out around game days, suburban hotels didn’t have the same turnout.
That’s on par with the initial skepticism hotels had about the projected booking numbers in the days leading up to the event.
Makenzie Wolters, communications manager for Visit KC, said the data on visitation, economic impact or hotel performance during the World Cup won’t be out for a few months.
