San Mateo County sees modest hotel gains from World Cup: Peninsula expects larger surge for upcoming USA game

“We have not seen the impact of overnight stays the way we were hoping for, which indicates that a lot of people are either driving in from shorter distances or are leaving after the matches,” Lang said.

Lang’s account follows other concerns of lackluster excitement for the World Cup games hosted at Santa Clara’s Levi’s Stadium, however, she’s hopeful that an upcoming July 1 match featuring team USA in a knockout round will bring an influx of new visitors.

Planned stays for the nights around the July match were previously down by 15% last year before announcement of the upcoming USA game, Lang said, but jumped to only 6% below last year after. It’s a positive trend she thinks will continue as last-minute ticket bookers search for places to stay.

“That is a huge win for us, because I think we’re going to see a significant spike in last-minute and late ... bookings for that, depending on who they’re playing against,” Lang said. “I think USA playing in Santa Clara on July 1 is sort of going to be the saving grace of bookings.”

Transit organizations like Caltrain have also been serving World Cup visitors, Caltrain spokesperson Dan Lieberman said. The agency had around 7,000 riders for the Qatar vs. Switzerland match on June 13 and around 6,000 for Austria vs. Jordan on June 16. Transfers from Bay Area transit options like Caltrain to Santa Clara’s Valley Transportation Authority have been going smoothly, he said.

“We’re delighted to see all these people from all over the world come to the Bay Area and use our service,” Lieberman said.

The San Francisco International Airport has also seen a 3% uptick in departing passengers in June, some of which can be attributed to the World Cup, San Francisco International Airport spokesperson Doug Yakel said, though, arriving passenger statistics have not yet been calculated.

Although hotel stays might not yet be in the double-digit increases that San Mateo County wanted to see, general economic activity for bars and restaurants typically looks up during major events, Lang said. That’s not only because of visitors but also because of locals going out to watch the games.

“From an anecdotal perspective, what we’re hearing from our partners in restaurants is that they are definitely seeing an increase in visitation, an increase in activity. We’re seeing viewing parties and restaurants and bars pick up,” she said.