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| Matthew Levison |
For more than two decades, I have watched travel marketing evolve from glossy brochures and FAM trips to data-driven campaigns that chase Gen Z attention spans and algorithm-friendly moments. Yet nothing has prepared the industry for the scale and speed at which sports are reshaping tourism.
The 2026 FIFA World Cup, co-hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico, will be the largest single-event tourism generator the continent has ever seen. Early projections already point to more than five million international visitors and $15–20 billion in economic impact across the 16 host cities. This is not an anomaly; it’s the latest in a series of athletic events with a growing influence over traveler behavior.
Sports tourism is no longer a side benefit. It is now a primary driver of visitation, media coverage and long-term brand equity. The cities, countries, airlines, hotels and tourism organizations that treat it as a one-off opportunity will lose ground to those that integrate it into a sustained, multi-year narrative.
From One-Off Events to Year-Round Platforms
The traditional model - host an event or activation, issue a press release, secure short-lead earned media - has been replaced by something far more sophisticated. Leading destinations are building “sports platforms” that extend well before and far beyond the tournament itself.
Consider how destinations such as Qatar and Australia leveraged the 2022 and 2023 FIFA events not just for the matches, but as catalysts for new flight routes, hotel development and cultural programming that continued for years afterward. The U.S. and Canadian host cities have an even greater opportunity because the tournament spans 16 markets rather than a single mega-venue. Each city can own a distinct chapter of the larger story – Los Angeles with its entertainment-meets-sports positioning, Seattle with its sustainability angle, Toronto with its multicultural narrative – while still benefiting from the collective halo of the World Cup brand.
This is where tourism communications must evolve. We are no longer simply promoting hotel packages, airline routes or destination experiences tied to the games. We are crafting layered narratives that connect sports, culture, sustainability and local identity. The most successful campaigns will feel less like event marketing and more like destination storytelling that happens to have a World Cup backdrop.
| This article is featured in O'Dwyer's Jul./Aug. '26 Travel & Tourism PR Magazine |
The New Influencer Economy
The rise of sports tourism coincides with a parallel transformation in how influence works. Athletes, teams and leagues have become some of the most powerful travel ambassadors on the planet. Lionel Messi’s move to Inter Miami generated a level of global attention and cultural relevance for the city in 2023–2024 that few conventional tourism campaigns could replicate.
Similarly, the explosion of women’s sports is creating entirely new audience segments. The 2023 Women’s World Cup drew record global audiences; the 2027 edition will be hosted in Brazil, yet every major North American city is already positioning itself as a training or fan destination.
These are not traditional influencers. They are athletes with tens of millions of followers who can influence destination consideration, airline bookings, and hotel demand overnight. Destinations, travel brands, and the agencies that support them must now maintain active relationships with sports agents, league offices, and athlete foundations far beyond the classic “athlete endorsement” model.
Earned Attention
Sports tourism also creates something destinations are increasingly struggling to earn organically: sustained attention. A major sporting event generates months of storylines across travel, business, culture, sustainability, infrastructure, and community impact.
The opportunity is not simply to promote the event itself, but to continually feed the broader narrative around what the destination and tourism ecosystem represents.
Measurement Has Changed
For years, we measured tourism communications success by room nights, media impressions and social mentions. Those metrics remain relevant but are no longer sufficient alone.
Today’s winning campaigns track “sports tourism lift” – the incremental visitation, hotel occupancy and spend that can be directly attributed to a sports property. They also measure long-term brand perception shifts. For example, “Did the World Cup change how international travelers view a city as modern, welcoming or safe? Did it open new source markets?” The question is no longer just "Did people come?" but "Did perceptions change?"
Forward-thinking teams are already building dashboards that combine traditional media analytics with mobile location data, credit-card spend data and airline booking trends. The agencies that can translate those insights into real-time campaign adjustments will win the next round of RFPs.
What PR Professionals Should Be Doing Now
1. Map the full sports calendar. Every destination should maintain a three-year rolling sports events matrix that includes major tournaments, training camps, youth championships and even e-sports events.
2. Build cross-sector coalitions. The most effective campaigns unite tourism boards, sports commissions, hotel associations, airlines, and cultural institutions under a single narrative umbrella. Silos kill impact.
3. Invest in athlete and team relations. Designate a dedicated sports liaison within the PR team or agency. This is a must.
The travel industry can no longer treat sports as a periodic sideshow. Whether through the 2026 World Cup or the dozens of other major events that now dot every annual calendar, sports tourism has become a permanent, high-stakes platform for differentiation, route development, brand storytelling and measurable growth. Cities, countries, destinations, airlines and hotel brands that continue to view sporting events as a one-off activation will find themselves on the sidelines while competitors pull ahead, but brands that embed sports into their long-term strategy will capture disproportionate share and long-term loyalty.
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Matthew Levison is Managing Director, Travel & Hospitality Practice at HUNTER.
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