World Cup fuels longer, multi-stop trips among Chinese travelers

With the 2026 FIFA World Cup in full swing across the United States, Canada and Mexico, passion-driven travel is gaining momentum among Chinese travelers, as football fans extend their stays, add more stops to their itineraries and venture beyond host cities, Airbnb data showed.

Airbnb, a US-based online accommodation platform, said bookings by Chinese users for stays in World Cup host cities during the tournament period tripled from a year earlier.

Chinese travelers spent an average of nine nights across the three host countries during the tournament period, with many extending their itineraries beyond match days, the company said.

Los Angeles, Vancouver and the New York-New Jersey metropolitan area were the three most-searched World Cup destinations among Chinese users.

Qi Yue, growth operations lead at Airbnb China, said travelers were increasingly using host cities as starting points for wider trips rather than limiting their journeys to match venues.

From Vancouver and Seattle, for example, some are extending their trips to Canmore, an Alberta mountain town in the Canadian Rockies, and nearby Calgary, she said.

On the US East Coast, itineraries are linking New York-New Jersey, Philadelphia and Boston with Washington, allowing travelers to move between matches while exploring several cities on a single trip, Qi added.

The tournament is also drawing Chinese travelers to Mexican host cities that had previously received less attention.

Searches for stays in Monterrey, a northern Mexican city ringed by mountains, surged fourteenfold year-on-year, while Guadalajara, known for its deep-rooted football culture, posted a fourfold increase. Searches for Mexico City doubled, Airbnb data showed.

Qi said the World Cup was putting a wider range of destinations on the radar of Chinese outbound travelers.

Younger travelers are playing a leading role.

Millennials and Generation Z were the most active groups searching for World Cup stays, while Gen Z accounted for a larger share of tournament-related searchers than of Chinese users overall, according to Airbnb.

Zhang Chao, head of marketing at Airbnb China, said the pattern reflected a broader shift toward passion-driven travel.

"In the past, people might say they wanted to go to Italy or France," Zhang said. "Now, they may decide to take a trip because they want to see a concert or run a trail race."

She said concerts, sporting events and other activities were increasingly shaping destination choices, with travelers arranging flights and accommodation around specific interests rather than deciding on a destination first.