World Cup triples England pub bookings
Bookings to watch England’s first Fifa World Cup 2026 game in the on-trade are up by 293%, with hospitality set for a 42% sales boost across the group stage.
The bookings data comes from hospitality technology provider Zonal, which predicts enormous demand from consumers to watch England play Croatia tonight (17 June) at 9pm.
Zonal measures these bookings as any with an arrival time of up to two hours before kick-off.
Analysis of transaction insight by Reward shows that England group games at Euro 2024 delivered a 42% sales increase for hospitality.
Kate Nicholls, chair of UKHospitality, said: “The pub is categorically the best place to watch England at the World Cup, both tonight and for the rest of the tournament.
“Bookings up almost 300% for tonight’s game shows that, despite the later-than-usual kick-off times, England fans want to get together to watch the game, cheer on the team and support their local.
“The World Cup will be a massive boost for our pubs and bars, with sales set to be up more than 40% across the group stage as fans gather for the games.
“Fingers crossed tonight’s game is the start of a long World Cup campaign for the Three Lions, in what would be a huge boost for both football fans and hospitality.”
Analysis from money.co.uk also predicted that hospitality will see an additional £4.2 billion (US$5.6bn) in revenue in the May-July period, a 9.3% increase compared with a typical non-World Cup year.
The data is based on Office for National Statistics (ONS) turnover data and historical spending patterns from previous World Cup tournaments.
Access Hospitality and DesignMyNight previously predicted that spend across the tournament will be up by more than 150% compared with Euro 2024.
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