Pub bookings surge almost 300% for England’s World Cup kick-off

June 17, 2026

Bookings to watch England’s first game in the pub are up 293%, as hospitality set for 42% sales boost across the group stage.

Bookings and sales boost

New data from hospitality technology provider Zonal reveals the enormous demand from consumers to watch England kick off their World Cup campaign against Croatia in their local.

The bookings, which are measured as those whose arrival time is up to two hours before kick-off, reinforces the pub as the best place to watch the tournament.

Hospitality benefits enormously from major football tournaments like the World Cup. Analysis of transaction insight by Reward shows England group games at Euro 2024 delivered a 42% sales increase, with UKHospitality predicting a similar boost during this World Cup.

Kate Nicholls, Chair of UKHospitality, said: “The pub is categorically the best place to watch England at the World Cup, both tonight and for the rest of the tournament.

“Bookings up almost 300% for tonight’s game shows that, despite the later than usual kick-off times, England fans want to get together to watch the game, cheer on the team and support their local.

“The World Cup will be a massive boost for our pubs and bars, with sales set to be up more than 40% across the group stage as fans gather for the games.

“Fingers crossed tonight’s game is the start of a long World Cup campaign for the Three Lions, in what would be a huge boost for both football fans and hospitality.”

Data from hospitality technology provider Zonal shows that match bookings in pubs for the 17 June, defined as bookings on the date of a game where the arrival time is up to two hours before a match starts, are up 293% compared to the same date in 2025.
For all hospitality venues, match bookings are up 98% compared to the same date in 2025.
Analysis of transaction insight from Euro 2024 by UKHospitality’s data partner Reward showed the year-on-year sales uplift for England group games was 42%.
The analysis is based on anonymised transactional and merchant information from Reward’s hospitality intelligence datasets, tracking the spending behaviour of 10.2 million people across more than 160,000 individual hospitality venues across the UK.
The analysis covers the period of the UEFA European Football Championship Tournament between 14 June 2024 – 14 July 2024. All data is fully anonymised and aggregated in line with GDPR and privacy requirements.