Heatwave cuts Britain’s World Cup pub bookings by 48%

Pub bookings tied to World Cup viewing in Britain fell sharply on June 25 as a heatwave hit the country, interrupting what had been a strong run of demand for matchday trade, according to new data from Access Hospitality and DesignMyNight.

The companies said booking volumes had been rising by an average of 18.5% a day between June 15 and June 24. But on June 25, the first full day of the heatwave in their analysis, bookings dropped to the lowest level recorded during the June 15-25 period.

Compared with the average level before the heatwave, bookings on June 25 were 48% lower, the data showed. Against the broader four-week average from May 27 to June 24, bookings were still down 26%, suggesting the decline was not only a pullback after unusually strong trading in the days before temperatures climbed.

The slowdown extended beyond advance reservations. Covers were down 19% on June 25 compared with the four-week average, while walk-in visits fell 11%, pointing to weaker traffic from both planned and spontaneous pub visits.

Champa Magesh, managing director at Access Hospitality, said the figures showed that hot weather had briefly disrupted World Cup-driven demand rather than erased it. She said projected spending across World Cup 2026 events is more than 150% higher than the final spend recorded during Euro 2024, indicating that pubs and other hospitality venues still face a large commercial opportunity as the tournament continues.

Magesh said key matches are expected to keep driving footfall and that operators able to adjust to changing weather conditions while maintaining a strong matchday offer would be better placed to benefit.

The methodology was based on data from Access Collins and DesignMyNight. Daily booking volumes were tracked from June 15 through June 25. For the pre-heatwave comparison, the daily average was calculated across June 16-24, excluding a three-day weekend gap from June 19-22 that was redistributed evenly across those days to avoid distortion.

Access Hospitality is part of The Access Group and says it provides software and management tools to more than 45,000 hospitality sites in Britain and more than 100,000 venues worldwide. DesignMyNight, also part of The Access Group, operates booking and discovery services for hospitality businesses. Its sister platform Access Collins processed more than 36.4 million bookings across 8,400 sites in 2024.