A month ago, Kansas City businesses were waiting with bated breath for the World Cup to begin. In the lead-up to the tournament, organizers promised hundreds of thousands of visitors who would all want to eat, drink and shop at local businesses while in town.
Once the tournament started, though, some owners began to raise alarms when the foot traffic failed to appear — or worse, sales decreased.
Bisou, a cafe in Kansas City’s Westside neighborhood, was one of the first to post about seeing a big slowdown. The post garnered nearly 8,000 likes and hundreds of comments, many by other business owners sharing similar stories.
The story got lots of attention online and in the media. But it’s not the full picture, says Travis Meier, a reporter for Axios Kansas City.
Meier spoke with nearly 15 Kansas City businesses, and found a huge variety in the amount of traffic they received.
Barbecue restaurants, for example, are seeing extreme demand surrounding match days – sometimes even more than normal for a Chiefs home game. But other shops, like those far away from downtown or the Fan Festival, or those who don’t normally cater to tourists, are much quieter than expected. Some say their regulars stopped coming to avoid crowds.
Meier said that whether a business is busy during the World Cup depends on a variety of factors, like location, product and reputation.
“If you're a plant shop, it is very hard to travel… especially internationally with plants, so you're probably not going to get any international visitors,” Meier told KCUR’s Up To Date. “But if you are selling Kansas City souvenirs, if you're selling Kansas City clothing… and celebrating the different teams that we've had here, and they've said that they've sold out of pretty much every design.”
- Travis Meier, Axios Kansas City
