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<\/p>\nReflecting on the seven World Cup games hosted in Vancouver, Chwin says he thinks the city \u201cpresented incredibly well\u201d as a fan experience and on the world stage.<\/p>\n
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He notes an uptick in sales for businesses geared toward a soccer crowd, such as sports bars, while he admits other businesses may have suffered.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had some successes and unfortunately, we had some misses,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re still trying to assess the impacts, positively and negatively, throughout the entire region, what did successfully and what didn\u2019t do successfully.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chwin noted this World Cup was unprecedented, as hosting duties spanned three countries. That, he said, was reflected in hotel rates. <\/p>\n
\u201cPeople are spread out all over the place, and so you\u2019ve really dispersed your audiences,\u201d Chwin said in an interview.<\/p>\n
He said in June, downtown Vancouver hotels had a 75 per cent occupancy rate, while the same period in 2025 had 91 per cent occupancy.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat story rings true to some degree in all of the 16 cities, so it\u2019s not a unique-to-Vancouver problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite this, transit and airport authorities reported usage spikes throughout Vancouver\u2019s hosting run. <\/p>\n
The Vancouver Airport Authority said in a statement that data around passenger counts, including reasons for travel to YVR, won\u2019t be available until later this summer. <\/p>\n
But it said \u201cYVR continues to see very strong demand and is tracking toward another robust summer season, supported by the FIFA World Cup, a busy cruise season and typical peak travel patterns.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEarly numbers from the start of the FIFA games period on June 8 through to July 10 suggest continued strong activity at YVR, with approximately 2.8 million passengers travelling through the airport, an average of about 86,000 passengers per day and peak days reaching close to 92,000,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n
\u201cDepending on the day, this represents an approximately five to 10 per cent increase in passenger volumes over the same period last year, which was a record year in YVR\u2019s history.\u201d<\/p>\n
The city\u2019s transit authority issued a news release saying ridership also increased across the city, particularly on match days.<\/p>\n
\u201cTogether, those match days generated an increase of more than 600,000 transit boardings across the region,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAround BC Place, the increase in ridership was even more significant on match days, with nearby SkyTrain stations seeing ridership rise by an average of 54 per cent, the highest ridership seen in the area since the 2010 Olympics.\u201d<\/p>\n
Overall, Chwin said it was a \u201cclean event\u201d that garnered \u201clots of fun and lots of positive comments about the city and the city experience and what people loved about Vancouver.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were reminded of the power of civic pride in our place and that we could pull off something significant and have a very positive impact,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the momentum now that we need to capitalize on for the years to come.\u201d<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 16, 2026.<\/p>\n
Brieanna Charlebois, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reflecting on the seven World Cup games hosted in Vancouver, Chwin says he thinks the city \u201cpresented incredibly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":805348,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194298],"tags":[49,48,55],"class_list":["post-805441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-vancouver","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-vancouver"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=805441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805441\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/805348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=805441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=805441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=805441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}