The World Cup has been a bit of a miss for Toronto hotels. For other parts of the economy? It’s no Taylor Swift.
According to data released this week by payments processing giant Moneris, spending by international tourists in the Toronto area has been up in several key categories since the World Cup kicked off, but total spending by locals, domestic tourists and international tourist, has only been marginally higher than the rate of inflation.
According to economist Victor Matheson, who specializes in studying the economic and business impact of the sports industry, there’s only one explanation.
“You’ve displaced your regular visitors with foreign tourists,” said Matheson, a professor of economics at College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass.
That means, argued Matheson, that the economic impact of Toronto hosting six games in FIFA’s showcase event has been marginal at best.
“Your best case is that you displaced domestic tourism and business travelers to later in the year. Your worst case is that you displaced it, so overall spending is pretty much a wash, and an expensive one given how much Toronto and Vancouver are paying to host,” said Matheson.
Requests for visitor numbers at some key downtown tourist attractions either drew no response, or a polite “no thanks.” Several emails asking for visitor data from Ripley’s Aquarium weren’t responded to, while a request for visitor data from the CN Tower — the city’s most iconic tourist site — was declined with the explanation that the tower doesn’t release monthly data.
The data provided by Moneris shows that from June 12 to June 26, total spending at Toronto bars and restaurants was up just three per cent over roughly the same time period a year ago (June 13 to 17, 2025). Spending by foreign tourists, or at least people with foreign-issued credit and debit cards, at those same bars and restaurants was up 34 per cent.
The Moneris data also showed overall spending was up for groceries, “mass merchandisers” and hotels, but down for apparel. According to data released by the Greater Toronto Hotel Association, hotel occupancy for the week ending June 20 was at 72 per cent, down from 88 per cent in the same week last year.
According to Moneris executive Sean McCormick, the overall impact of the World Cup in Toronto has paled in comparison to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, which saw Swifties flooding to the city from across the country and around the world.
“During the Eras Tour, we saw 90 per cent increases on apparel, and big rises at bars and restaurants,” said McCormick, Moneris’s vice president of business development and data services. “Taylor Swift is a phenomenon. Panama vs. Ghana is not a phenomenon.”
Even though many downtown bars and restaurants have been packed while showing World Cup games, the head of Restaurants Canada said it’s still not clear if this city being a host provided a significant bump. And on games days, it hurts some downtown spots, especially those which don’t have a sporting focus.
“So many places close their offices on game days to avoid chaos for workers,” said Restaurants Canada CEO Kelly Higginson. “Restaurants in those neighbourhoods are really feeling it. They don’t have their usual traffic, and because they’re not the sports places, they’re not getting any soccer fans to make up for it.”
And places which are busy when games are on? They’d likely be busy no matter where the games were being played, Higginson argued.
“The games could be anywhere,” said Higginson, pointing to the fact that many restaurants and bars showing games are busy during games happening in Mexico or the U.S., which are co-hosting the 2026 World Cup alongside Canada.
Pedro Antunes, chief economist at Signal 49 Research, formerly known as the Conference Board of Canada, took a “glass is half-full” perspective.
“It’s definitely possible there’s some crowding out here, but it seems that maybe the foreign spending did help stabilize the spending in some of those categories,” said Antunes, adding that the Canadian economy had been sputtering before the World Cup arrived in town with Canada’s opener against Bosnia and Herzegovina June 12.
“We can never know the counterfactual of what would it have been like without the World Cup, but the economy has been pretty weak this year. We’re just coming out of a technical recession,” said Antunes.
Still, said sports economist Matheson, there’s still value in hosting a World Cup, even if the financial benefits are a little nebulous. Call it the happiness factor, said Matheson, a life-long soccer fan.
“My voice is still hoarse from cheering during that Algeria-Austria game. It was incredible,” said Matheson. “We do have some evidence these events make us happy. There’s just not much evidence they make us rich.”
