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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, 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. 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, 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? 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. 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? 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. 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. 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. Kevin, great to talk with you today. Thanks very much.
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Look forward to chatting again down the road. My pleasure. I'm happy to do it.
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Thank you. Professor Kevin Kaiser of the Wharton School.