Chris Van Brockhoven booked his trip to Vancouver last summer with one goal in mind: seeing a World Cup match. This spring, the London, England resident and his group got their chance to buy tickets, and he said the numbers stopped them cold.
“We were flabbergasted at how expensive the tickets are and how much people are seemingly paying for them,” Van Brockhoven said, adding that the prices were “crazy” when the group was offered seats about a month ago. He said the tickets he has seen on social media and resale pages are around $2,000 each, and that level of spending was too much for his group to justify. “We’d pay that for a season ticket over here for a top English club. We just can’t justify that sort of spend,” he said.
Van Brockhoven and the three other men in his party all entered FIFA’s selection draws, underscoring how many fans are hoping to get in through the official route rather than pay the market rate. The squeeze is showing up in Vancouver’s travel numbers too. Destination Vancouver said June hotel bookings in the city are down 20 per cent this year compared with the same time in 2025, even as air arrivals to Vancouver between June and August are up six per cent from last year. The group said it remains hopeful bookings will pick up closer to kickoff, and described the data as dynamic, with optimism for a late surge.
The pressure is not just on fans trying to buy tickets. In Vancouver, anyone who wants to host on Airbnb must make the listing their principal residence and secure a City of Vancouver short-term rental business licence, then register with the province. Jarrett Vaughan said that process is likely to deter many people, especially with the cost at about $1,200 annually and the risk that a host may not be able to rent the property out. He said World Cup Facebook forums are already filled with people listing homes for rent during the games, and that some are renting places in exchange for tickets or putting them on Facebook and absorbing the insurance risk themselves.
Vaughan said the city’s hotel market is already expensive and will only get tighter as visitors arrive. “One of the biggest challenges that visitors have when coming to Vancouver is just simply the cost,” he said. “Hotel accommodations are very expensive in Vancouver no matter what’s happening, and so you then add this layer of visiting guests and this added pressure drives, obviously, room rates higher.” He argued the province and local governments have left the market too open, which he said is contributing to high prices and could leave the city with fewer visitors than it should have because it is simply too expensive to come here.
The pattern is not unique to Vancouver. Earlier this month, the American Hotel & Lodging Association said anticipated demand had not translated into strong hotel bookings after surveying hoteliers across host cities in the United States, with 80 per cent of respondents calling bookings disappointing and domestic travellers outpacing international visitors. For Vancouver, the combination of pricey tickets, costly rooms and tight rental rules could shape how many fans actually make the trip when the tournament opens.
