The 2026 FIFA World Cup is the largest sporting event on the planet, and this year North America has the honor of hosting the very best football players, across 16 cities in the US, Canada and Mexico.
For restaurants, bars, and hotels across the globe, the demand is already there. Fans are actively searching for the best atmosphere, the best screens and the best reason to book a table rather than watch from a couch. That fan culture translates directly into reservations, and restaurants that move fast on their World Cup marketing campaigns will capture the lion's share of it.
Venues will be full of new guests booking in advance, arriving in groups and spending well. The question is what happens on July 20, the day after the Final. How do you turn those first-time diners into repeat guests?
The operators who win this tournament aren't just the ones who fill the room. They're the ones who turn six weeks of high-intent bookings into a guest database, a retention strategy and a revenue stream that outlasts the tournament itself.
Here are 10 World Cup marketing ideas for restaurants, bars and hotels to help you do exactly that.
1. Launch bookable experience pages for key matches
With 104 matches taking place, every game is an opportunity for you to offer World Cup events and experiences that fans will want to be a part of. But don't just open your standard reservation flow, build dedicated experience landing pages for the games that matter most to your crowd: the opener, the semi-finals or whichever national team your guests care about most.
SevenRooms Experience pages let you create a dedicated, bookable page for a specific event: add photos, a description, pricing, F&B packages and a direct booking link all in one place. Guests see exactly what they're booking. You capture their data, collect prepaid revenue and have a shareable link to promote across social and email before a single match kicks off.
We've seen restaurants approach this in two ways.
Per-match experience pages
Create a dedicated page for each key game: the opener, a national team's group-stage run, the semis. Each page is its own offer, its own revenue opportunity and its own shareable link to amplify across your social media campaigns. Bella Vista Hotel in Australia built separate bookable Watch Party experiences for specific World Cup dates, each with distinct details and its own booking flow.
A season-long booking page
For high-footfall venues where building a page per match isn't practical, create one tournament-wide experience running June 11 through July 19. Guests land on the page, choose a date from the full match calendar and book their spot. Notting Hill Front Bar and Public Bar (both in Melbourne) used this approach on SevenRooms, giving them a single destination to promote across all their channels for six straight weeks.
2. Embed F&B upsells at the point of booking
The best time to upsell a drinks package isn't when the guest is already at the table. It's when they're booking. Adding reservation upgrades and add-ons to your World Cup experience not only saves time for your guests, but gives you a clearer picture of expected revenue per cover and deters no-shows.
According to our recent restaurant trends report, SevenRooms customers who add reservation upgrades to their booking flow see, on average, a 16% lift in per cover spend. The World Cup is one of the biggest sports marketing opportunities of the year. A few upsell ideas that work well for match-day bookings:
- Beer or cocktail flights tied to the competing nations
- Bottomless drinks packages for the duration of the match
- Shareable appetizer platters or snack boards for the table
- A select match-day menu at a fixed price per person
- Half-time food bundles (wings, sliders, fries) guests can pre-order at booking
- Dessert or cheese boards for post-match celebrations
Add a QR code to table cards or printed menus that links to your World Cup experience page. Guests already in the venue can book their next match visit on the spot.
3. Offer premium seating packages and VIP room bookings
Not every guest wants to watch from a bar stool. For venues with private or semi-private spaces, packaging those rooms around key fixtures is one of the highest-upside World Cup marketing ideas available, and one of the strongest examples of experiential marketing a restaurant can offer.
Heliot Steak House in London is offering private VIP dining rooms bookable for each group-stage match: premium food, curated drinks and dedicated live match coverage in a committed, pre-paid setting. Higher spend per head, guests who actually show up and a customer profile that skews toward exactly the kind of guest you want to see again.
For venues that don’t have exclusive spaces, you can still increase the value of select seating by offering table upgrades for the best view of the screens. Using SevenRooms reservation system, Darwin Brasserie in London, added window view table upgrade options in the booking process, which led to a 626% increase in digital sales in just two months.
4. Own the guest data by routing bookings through your direct channel
Here's the question worth asking before the first match kicks off: if you sell out every World Cup screening and 60% of those guests are new to your venue, how many of them can you reach in August?
For venues using a third-party reservations app only, the honest answer is not many.
When a guest books directly through your SevenRooms reservation widget or experience page, you own their first-party data: their name, contact details, visit history, spend behavior and marketing consent. Third-party platforms keep that data. You fill the room; they own the customer.
The World Cup will drive demand to your venue regardless. The question is whether you capture it.
In addition to promoting on third-party reservation apps, add your World Cup booking link to your Google Business Profile, Instagram bio and any social content promoting the tournament. Every click to your own booking page is a guest profile you control.
5. Use the group stage to grow your marketing database
The group stage (the first three weeks of the tournament) is your acquisition window. Your primary goal beyond operational execution is building a guest database segmented by demographics, preferences, spend behavior and visit history that you can market to for months.
Every direct booking through SevenRooms automatically builds a guest profile in your restaurant CRM with contact details, visit history, spend and preferences, all in one place. Automated and custom guest tags let you label those profiles — "first-time visitor," "World Cup booking," "high spender" — so you can segment and market to them later. You could even tag fans by their favorite team like “Brazil” or “Mexico” to target them in the knockout rounds.
Use those tools to tag first-time visitors, track which match or experience page each guest booked through and capture marketing opt-ins at the point of reservation. By the end of the group stage, you should have a segmented, actionable list of every guest who attended during the tournament: who they are, when they came, what they spent and whether they've been before.
That list is what makes the rest of these World Cup marketing ideas work.
6. Re-engage between rounds before interest drops
As teams get eliminated, a chunk of your group-stage audience loses steam. Don't wait for the quarter-finals to remind them you exist.
Create a social media campaign and send targeted email campaigns to everyone who attended an early-round match: highlight the drama still ahead, promote your knockout round watch party experiences and create urgency with limited availability. Lean into national pride — if a significant portion of your guests support a team still in the tournament, speak directly to that. Guests who've booked once will book again with the right prompt.
With SevenRooms' automated marketing tools, you can trigger this campaign automatically in the days after a significant elimination, so your timing is always relevant.
Encourage guests to share user-generated content from their watch party experience and tag your venue. UGC from a packed, buzzing World Cup night is some of the most effective earned media coverage your restaurant can get — and it costs nothing.
7. Shift from volume to value in the knockout rounds
By the quarter-finals, the tournament is at its most intense. Shift focus from filling covers to extracting higher value from the guests who keep coming back.
Launch VIP packages, premium world cup viewing upgrades and group dining experiences for the remaining games. Guests you've tagged as high-spenders from earlier rounds deserve a direct, personalized invitation, not a blanket email. 74% of diners plan to or have already returned to a restaurant after a unique dining experience. The knockout rounds are the moment to give them one.
Consider influencer partnerships with local sports media or food creators to amplify premium packages to a wider audience ahead of the semis, especially if your venue is in or near a host city.
8. Make the Final a ticketed, prepaid event
The Final is a once-in-four-years occasion. Treat it that way.
A premium, ticketed Final experience with a set menu, drinks package and minimum spend is the kind of offer that sells out weeks in advance among guests who've already trusted your venue during the tournament. Set the page up now, promote it to your World Cup guest database and collect payment at booking. This can be the single highest-revenue night of the year if you plan it like one.
9. Send post-match communications that know who they're talking to
Generic thank-you emails don't drive return visits. Personalized ones do. In fact, SevenRooms data shows targeted emails drive 16X more revenue per email than mass sends.
With SevenRooms' segmentation and email marketing tools, you can tailor follow-up communications to exactly what each guest did during the tournament:
- Guests who attended three or more matches receive priority access to your next major sporting event before it opens publicly.
- Guests who booked a premium package or private room get early access to your next high-ticket experience.
- First-time visitors receive a considered reason to come back: a complimentary starter, a drinks-on-arrival offer, something that acknowledges they're new and worth keeping.
- High-spending groups get tagged as VIPs in your CRM, so your team already knows who they are next time they walk in.
10. Use the data to make your next event sharper
When the tournament ends, your World Cup guest data becomes one of your most valuable marketing assets.
Which matches drove the highest demand? Which packages had the strongest sales? Which guests came once and which kept coming back? With SevenRooms' reporting tools, you can analyze exactly which bookings, promotions and segments drove the most revenue, and apply those insights to your next event whether it’s the rugby world cup, the Super Bowl, a Champions League night or your own seasonal programming.
The operators heading into the 2030 World Cup with a well-maintained CRM full of engaged, segmented guests will be playing a different game from the ones who simply had a busy June.
There are still weeks left. Use them.
The tournament runs through July 19. The knockouts are underway, premium Final packages haven't been built yet and a significant share of new guest bookings are still to come.
The question isn't whether the World Cup will bring guests through your door. It will. The question is whether you'll have a list of hundreds of engaged new guests to market to from July onwards for your next big event.
World Cup marketing ideas: FAQs
How far in advance should restaurants start promoting World Cup experiences?
As early as possible, ideally four to six weeks before the tournament opens. The group stage is your acquisition window, but prepaid watch party experiences and premium packages fill up before that if promoted well. With the 2026 FIFA World Cup already underway, operators should be launching knockout round and Final experiences now.
What are the most effective World Cup marketing ideas for restaurants?
The most effective World Cup marketing ideas are ones that tie a reservation to a specific offer: an F&B package, a VIP room booking or a set menu for a key match. These drive prepaid revenue before the event, reduce no-shows and capture better first-party data than a standard table booking. SevenRooms customers use Experiences to build and promote these packages directly within the booking flow.
Should restaurants use third-party platforms to promote World Cup events?
Third-party platforms can drive initial discovery, but venues should route bookings through their own direct channels wherever possible. When a guest books via a third party, the venue typically doesn't retain the guest's contact details or marketing consent, meaning follow-up marketing, personalization and retention are all harder. Direct reservations through SevenRooms mean you own the guest relationship — and their first-party data — from the first booking.
What SevenRooms features are most useful for World Cup marketing?
Events, Experiences & Add-ons for building bookable match experiences and packages; Reservations & Waitlist for direct booking and guest data capture; CRM for tagging and segmenting World Cup guests; Email Marketing and Marketing Automation for personalized re-engagement campaigns; and Reporting for analyzing which events and promotions drove the most revenue.
