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This summer, the United States will see people from numerous countries around the globe
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visiting our country, not just to see our country, but to, for many of them,
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watch their national soccer or football teams play in the World Cup. But how are various cities and
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our country preparing to be able to host the world, literally people from around the world?
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That was the topic of a recent seminar at the Wharton School. Professor Kevin Kaiser of the
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Wharton School was the moderator, and he joins us to discuss what was talked about during that event.
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Kevin, great to talk with you. Thanks for a couple of moments today.
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Yes, my pleasure. Happy to be here.
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And look, people visit the United States from around the world all the time,
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but the dynamic of having the World Cup makes this very unique, doesn't it?
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It's a different type of visitor. It's true we get, the U.S. is one of the most visited
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countries in the world, of course. It's big, and it has lots of attractions,
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and it attracts therefore many, many visitors. The difference, I think, with the World Cup
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is sports, rather than what people often come here for, because people are not as familiar
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with the American sports, especially the NFL. And so they may be familiar with hockey and basketball,
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but they tend to not be the reason they're coming here. They're coming here to visit
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the national parks, of course, Orlando, the big cities, New York and Philadelphia, Los Angeles,
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Chicago. So they're coming here to experience what is the normal America. This is not the
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normal America. They're not coming here to visit America. They're coming here to watch their team
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play. And so it's a different group of visitors. They come with different mindsets and also
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different spending patterns. Do the dynamics that each of the cities that will be hosting games,
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how different do they need to be from what they would have traditionally with their
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preparation for a visitor coming from another country?
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Well, it's various things. So hospitality, restaurants, those types of businesses
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are used to dealing with, of course, lots of visitors. But let's put them into two groups,
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if you like, international visitors and domestic visitors. And it tends to be the international
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visitors to the USA are on the wealthier side. They're coming here with their kids to show their
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kids or show their family or see for the first time themselves what is America. But they tend
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to be a little bit more affluent. They tend to stay at nicer hotels, eat at nicer restaurants.
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Domestic travelers, people who visit our cities from young people who travel to go to see
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concerts, they stay at Airbnbs, they eat at the more normal restaurants. So the domestic traveler
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segment is a little bit less high net worth oriented and spends a little bit less money on
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average than the international travelers. In this case, the international travelers are a little bit
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more like our domestic travelers in the sense they're probably a little bit less likely to stay
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at the nicer hotels, a little bit less likely to eat at the nicer restaurants. The World Cup
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travelers come as it's a bucket list item for them to see their team play in the World Cup.
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And the US is a very expensive destination. And so the cities need to be prepared for an influx of
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international travelers, but not the normal high net worth individual international travelers
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they're used to. And they're going to stay at the Airbnbs and go to local sports bars.
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And they're going to want to use the public transit, for example, much more than the normal
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international travelers would. And they're going to be doing it en masse to go to the matches.
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So there's going to need to be a lot of traffic control and people control.
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And that's one of the dynamics that's interesting so far when, as we're hearing stories come out in
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preparation for the World Cup, the transportation and the travel, seemingly the price and the cost
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associated with that is being hiked quite a bit higher. The story about trains coming from New
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York City going out to the Meadowlands, like 10 or 12 times the original cost. This is a challenge.
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Probably, I assume, more so for the domestic fan going to a game than the international fan.
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Also the international fans, because keeping in mind the US is quite a fantastic country.
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I'm Canadian, and I mentioned I lived in France for 25 years. I'm familiar with life in other
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countries. The US is a wealthy country. The GDP per capita here is between 50% and 80% higher
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than similar European countries. France or Germany or the UK, their GDP per capita is two thirds
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what ours is, or even less in some cases. Italy, Spain, it's lower. And then there are the less
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wealthy countries, Brazil and Argentina, et cetera. And so for those travelers who've come here,
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the US is a very expensive place. And that's the first thing, they're going to find it expensive
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because it is expensive compared to what they're used to because of the wealth that's been generated
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in the US. But in addition, the public transit systems are not the same. So for particularly
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Europeans who come here or the Asians who come here from Japan, from Singapore, Hong Kong, China,
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they're used to transit systems that function at a very high level, carry large volumes of people,
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and are very efficient. The US, some cities like New York have pretty good transit systems,
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excellent transit systems. Other cities, less excellent, less coverage and less efficient.
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And so international travelers are going to find that to be a bit of a surprise.
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And the expense and the convenience of getting around will probably be a bit of a barrier for
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them. It'll be a bit of a shock. For the cities and their government leadership and all of the
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resources that they have, it's going to be obviously a very interesting summer in terms of
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having everything they need to have, police, fire, ambulance, as you said, transportation ready to go.
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And in a city like ours with Philadelphia, it's a very unique summer as well, because not only do
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you have the World Cup games, you have the Major League Baseball All-Star Game, you have the PGA
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Championship. There are many other events that are going to go on. So for a city like Philadelphia,
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they have to be incredibly prepared for all of these different events this year, which all will
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put them on the front row. That's right. And Philadelphia is, I think, and one of the things
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I learned in the recent moderated session that we did is, you know, I talked to three people
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who were quite involved in preparing Philadelphia for these types of events. And the reality is,
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Philadelphia is well prepared. And I mentioned in that session, you know, when I came here in 2017,
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Philadelphia won the Super Bowl. We had a million people in the Super Bowl parade, and it went off
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without a glitch. And then we did it again, you know, a couple of years ago. Philadelphia is
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capable. We have a good metro system. SEPTA gets people down to the stadiums, you know, the Broad
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Street line. And I know lots of people who choose to take SEPTA and park downtown or don't even,
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you know, take the train into downtown and then take the SEPTA down the Broad Street line. So
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Philadelphia is relatively well positioned. They're used to holding big events. Our police,
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our fire, the businesses are pretty prepared for this. I expected to go off without a glitch,
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to be honest. And I think it'll be completely fine. The businesses are quick to step up.
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What are some people here?
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Love sports already. So the sports bar, the restaurants, they're ready for this.
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What are some of the things that businesses themselves, like individual restaurants or
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stores need to think about as they are preparing for this? And the interesting dynamic, again,
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here in Pennsylvania, the governor of the state made it so that bars will be able to stay open
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later than normal this summer during the time of the World Cup to really, you know, really
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give those fans something that they're used to in other parts of the world.
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Yeah. I don't think they need to do anything particularly different because, as I said,
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they're used to hosting great domestic crowds and they're used to hosting international crowds as
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well. What might be a little bit different for the World Cup is if you go to football,
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soccer matches in other cities, what you probably are aware of is they often have
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to separate the fans physically, you know, geographically in the stadium and in many
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cases with chain link fence or chicken wire fence, you know, the fans tend to get very
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emotional. And even though, you know, Phillies fans hate the Boston fans, they rarely break
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out into actual violence. You know, we go to games here, you know, Sixers games and Eagles
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games and Flyers games, et cetera, Phillies games. And we don't see fistfights breaking
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up normally. But those do happen in soccer matches in other countries. And so being aware
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that these fans can be a little rough and, you know, the hooligans, as I'm sure people
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have heard about, they do travel. And so every now and then you want to be aware that,
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you know, getting different fan groups too close to each other can easily break out into
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a squirmish. And you don't want to have that happening, especially inside your restaurant.
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So inside the restaurant, you want to keep the atmosphere excited for the sport, but watch out
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for certain groups of fans who might be a little bit, I don't want to say drinking too much
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necessarily, but too passionate, added to alcohol and other things. And especially if they have an
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opposing group in the same restaurant, you know, keep it light.
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Is there something that's specific that you are more interested in from this dynamic of hosting
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the World Cup and hosting the world of how it will play out over the course of the summer?
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Well, one thing that I, you know, again, being a bit of a citizen of the world myself,
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having lived abroad quite a bit and not really not being an American citizen, at least not yet,
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I love that America is an amazing place and I hope America succeeds and Philadelphia succeeds
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in showcasing itself as an amazing place. You know, I want the international fans who come here
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to experience what a great time, a fun time, you know, a great time without any negative incidents
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or events. And I want the viewers from around the world to see America hosting this and pulling it
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off really successfully. And I think it's very likely to happen, you know, and a place like
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Philadelphia, we're going to roll through the PGA Championship with the MLB All-Star Weekend.
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We're going to, we're going to roll through this. And plus, of course, the 250th anniversary of this,
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I know the Declaration of Independence happened here in Philadelphia. I think we're going to
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roll through this. I expect it to be with great success. And I think the world is going to see
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what Philadelphia can deliver, which is a really great event. And then people can experience and
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see if they can't be here in person, they'll see what Philadelphia can deliver. And so the
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long-term branding impact for some of these cities, for Philadelphia and for the country,
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the branding impact in terms of how the world sees America, I think we have a potential to really
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enhance that perspective if we do this well. And I expect we will do it well, especially, I know,
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in Philadelphia. My expectation is high.
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Kevin, great to talk with you today. Thanks very much.
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Look forward to chatting again down the road.
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My pleasure. I'm happy to do it.
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Thank you. Professor Kevin Kaiser of the Wharton School.
