A big sports tournament this June has led to Overland Park hotels being booked solid. It’s not the one you’re thinking of.

Several hotels in the area say their bookings are looking strong for the annual Top Gun Invitational, an elite high school fast-pitch softball tournament that runs this year from June 11-14.

It’s bookings for the World Cup, which starts right after, that still look hazy, they say.

At the Holiday Inn Express & Suites on West 135th Street in Overland Park, general manager Mieke Swanson said the softball tournament has booked up all their rooms for the days immediately preceding the start of the World Cup in Kansas City.

World Cup bookings, on the other hand, have been “a little slow, but we’re expecting them to pick up.”

However, “I don’t think we’re going to reach the numbers projected a few months ago.”

Two big sporting events back to back

Organizers of the Top Gun Invitational, which each year attracts around 4,000 players and their families, as well as hundreds of college coaches and scouts to the Kansas City metro, were initially worried about the World Cup’s impact on their annual event.

News that the Kansas City area was about to become a hub for the largest sporting event in the world was a bit unsettling, admitted Jeff Wallace, vice president of business development for Kansas City, Kansas-based Top Gun Events.

“It was kind of scary for us for a while,” Wallace said. “It put the event in jeopardy.”

With 360 teams from more than 30 states, more than 9,000 room nights are expected to be needed across the KC region to accommodate all the visitors for the event, which this year is backing up perilously close to the first World Cup match played in Kansas City on June 16.

Because World Cup organizer FIFA reserves blocks of hotel rooms to make sure officials and teams are accommodated, the softball organizers were initially looking at a significant room shortage when planning for their event started last year.

“If you had asked me in November or December, we were petrified,” Wallace said.

The softball tournament is a major planning event for Visit Overland Park, said President and CEO Warren Wilkinson. The 3,000 room nights booked in Overland Park alone will account for a significant portion of Johnson County’s hotel capacity. The county has about 10,000 rooms in over 90 hotels, he said.

Overland Park, where most games are played, has hosted the event for 14 years. Hotels there are typically booked solid during the tournament, he said.

Wallace, with Top Gun, is breathing more easily now that FIFA has released some of those hotel rooms, and the organization has worked out a way to house about 200 officials it will need for the softball games.

“We should be in good shape. Now it’s business as usual,” he said.

Heightened concerns about World Cup hotel occupancy

Hoteliers in Johnson County say the softball tournament, which has been one of the county’s biggest annual events for the past 14 years, is doing a good job of filling up their rooms on the tournament weekend.

But World Cup occupancy remains more of a question mark.

A widely publicized April analysis by the American Hotel and Lodging Association received wide attention in Kansas City for reporting that roughly 80% of hotel respondents to its survey said bookings are trending below expectations.

Kansas City got top billing in that report. Here, 80-90% of respondent hotels said the pace of booking was behind a typical June or July that had no major events. In fact, the report said, Kansas City — home to four confirmed team base camps — was considered to be the most negatively impacted World Cup host market.

The association’s report blamed the low numbers on an overzealous blocking of rooms by FIFA, creating an artificial impression of demand. FIFA has since released a significant number of rooms, the report said.

Hotel respondents to their survey also said geopolitical concerns and visa barriers may be suppressing the number of international travelers.

The Trump administration had previously required bonds of $5,000 to $15,000 be posted by travelers from 50 countries whose visitors they said have a high rate of overstaying. That included Tunisia and Algeria, which have matches in Kansas City. (Algeria also will host its team base camp in Lawrence, Kansas.)

However, on Wednesday, the White House dropped that requirement for people from those countries who have confirmed tickets to World Cup matches.

Local World Cup organizers said that despite the early lagging reports on hotel occupancy, they still expect a big turnout in Kansas City.

Pam Kramer, CEO of KC2026, said last week that ticket sales at Arrowhead Stadium are trending toward sellouts for all six matches that Kansas City will host, with the majority of purchases coming from outside the Kansas City area.

She also said the downtown fan zone has registrations from 112 countries and every state in the union and that three dates are already sold out for the premium fan service product.

How Overland Park hotels are feeling

Some Johnson County hoteliers say they are not ready to declare the World Cup a bust, though bookings haven’t exactly been up to initial expectations.

At the DoubleTree in Overland Park, general manager Darren Chadwick said all the hotel’s double rooms have been booked for the Top Gun softball tournament during its weekend in early June.

The softball tournament will use several ballfields in the area and will easily sell out hotels nearby in Overland Park, Chadwick said.

Although bookings for the World Cup have been slower, he said he’s reserving judgment until the first match is closer.

“It’s just too soon,” he said, noting that tickets are still being released and the World Cup is “uncharted territory” for much of the United States.

He said he generally sees an increase in demand for Kansas City Chiefs games, and major concerts also have a big impact.

The World Cup and the softball tournament are two very different events, Wilkinson said.

“There are a lot of forces at play in terms of what’s going on globally” that can affect bookings, he added, listing ticket prices, hotel rates, negative public sentiment toward the United States and the war in Iran, as examples.

“All of those things play into what might be a little bit of a depressed booking, but there’s still plenty of time left to continue to see bookings come,” he said.

At the Candlewood Suites on West 135th Street in Overland Park, the bookings for the softball tournament have already taken up all but a few single rooms, said Assistant General Manager Zerinmar Yambo.

For the first World Cup match on June 16, there are still eight rooms left, she said, adding that World Cup occupancy remains to be seen.

“It’s still kind of early to tell,” she said.