Here in Houston, we are weeks away from one of the biggest sporting events in the world. And the question I keep coming back to is simple: will small culinary businesses actually see any of this economic opportunity, or will it pass them by like so many before it?
Because if history is any indicator, we already know the answer.
The Super Bowl. The NBA All-Star Game. March Madness. Every time a major sporting event lands in a city, the economic projections are staggering and the excitement is real. But when the dust settles, the businesses that captured the bulk of that opportunity were the ones that already had the relationships, the contracts, and the access. A handful of small culinary businesses get in. Most do not even know where the door is.
The World Cup is the biggest sporting event on the planet. The stakes are higher, the visitor numbers are larger, and the window to get this right is closing fast. If we do not intentionally connect small culinary businesses to the tourism infrastructure that controls access to these opportunities, we will be having this same conversation after the final whistle with the same disappointing results.
That is what our data tells us. And that is what I want to talk about today.
This week, the American Hotel and Lodging Association released survey results showing that nearly 80% of hotels across U.S. World Cup host cities are tracking below their booking forecasts. Here in Houston, about 70% of hotels are below projections. Visa barriers, geopolitical uncertainty, and rising costs are being cited as the main culprits.
The hospitality industry is worried. I get it.
But while everyone is focused on hotel occupancy rates, there is a quieter and more familiar story unfolding for the small culinary businesses that sit at the heart of the food and cultural experience visitors actually come for.
We Already Knew This Was Coming
Last year, Feed the Soul Foundation published the 2024 State of Small Culinary Businesses Industry Report. It was the first national study of its kind, built specifically around the realities of independently owned culinary entrepreneurs. We surveyed 393 small business owners across the country. We listened. We documented what we already knew from working closely with these communities for years.
One finding stopped me every single time I presented it:
67% of small culinary business owners reported having no relationship with their city’s convention and visitors bureau.
Not a weak relationship. No relationship.
Think about what that means. The very institutions responsible for driving tourism, curating visitor experiences, and marketing cities to the world have almost no connection to the businesses that are most deeply embedded in the food and cultural life of those cities.
We collected that data in 2024. Before the World Cup was a pressing concern. Before the hotel booking numbers came in soft. Before any of this was in the news cycle.
The gap was already there. We just finally had the receipts.
What Slow Hotel Bookings Mean for Small Restaurants
Here is something worth understanding about the ripple effect when major event tourism underperforms.
When fewer visitors book hotel rooms, small food businesses feel it first. Hotel guests are a primary source of foot traffic for neighborhood restaurants. They rely on concierge recommendations, CVB dining guides, and curated visitor itineraries to find places to eat. When the hotel occupancy drops, that referral pipeline shrinks.
And here is the part that stings a little more: short-term rentals are picking up some of the slack where hotels are soft. That sounds fine on the surface. But Airbnb guests behave differently than hotel guests. They cook in. They order delivery. They are far less likely to stumble into a neighborhood restaurant through the kind of institutional referral systems that hotel tourism generates.
The visitors who do show up, especially international fans who tend to stay longer and spend more on food and cultural experiences, represent a real opportunity. But only for businesses that are visible to the tourism ecosystem. Only for businesses with a seat at the table.
And our data tells us most of them do not have one.
This Is Not a Small Business Problem. It Is a Systems Problem.
I want to be careful here, because it would be easy to read this as a story about small culinary businesses being left behind. That is not the story I am telling.
The business owners I work with show up every single day. They pour everything into their restaurants, their food trucks, their catering operations. They hire from their communities. They give back to their neighborhoods. Our report found that 73% of small culinary business owners financially support local community initiatives, and 68% actively contribute to local nonprofits. These are not businesses that are failing to participate. They are businesses that have been systematically excluded from the rooms where opportunity gets allocated.
Convention and visitors bureaus, city economic development offices, and the corporations that activate around major events make decisions about which businesses get featured, which neighborhoods get marketed, and which restaurants end up in the official visitor experience. When small, minority-owned, and immigrant-owned culinary businesses have no relationship with those institutions, they do not just miss the World Cup. They miss every event, every campaign, and every economic moment that follows.
This is a solvable problem. But solving it requires honesty about who built the systems and who they were designed to serve.
Why Culinary Tourism Makes This Urgent Right Now
Let me put some numbers on the table.
The global culinary tourism market was valued at $11.5 billion in 2023. It is projected to reach over $40 billion by 2030. The World Food Travel Association reports that 34% of international tourists choose their destination based on local cuisine.
Food is not a side effect of travel. For a growing and significant share of visitors, food is the reason.
The World Cup brings together fans from countries where food culture is identity. Where eating well is not optional, it is the point of the trip. These are visitors who want to eat where the culture actually lives, not just where the signage is biggest.
Small culinary businesses are exactly what those visitors are looking for. And right now, most of those businesses have no pipeline to reach them.
What Feed the Soul Foundation Is Doing About It
This is not a moment for hand-wringing. It is a moment for action. And honestly, we did not wait for the World Cup to start preparing.
Earlier this year, at our Global Culinary Conference, Feed the Soul Foundation hosted sessions built specifically around helping culinary businesses capture opportunities exactly like this one. We covered Destination Dining and preparing for high-volume tourism moments, winning institutional food contracts, securing procurement bids and RFPs, and contract-ready pitching including capability statements and pitch decks. These were not feel-good panels. They were practical, tactical sessions designed to put business owners in the room and help them stay there.
Through our Culinary Business Network, we went even further. In partnership with Maria Duran of Duran Partnerships, our Program Director, Karina Fernandez, hosted virtual and in-person training specifically focused on World Cup readiness for small culinary businesses. Participants walked away understanding the licensing requirements for public viewing events, how to use social media and game-day promotions to drive traffic, how to design high-impact menus that increase ticket size and repeat visits, and how to build partnerships with liquor brands and local businesses for activations.
That is what real preparation looks like. Not a brochure. Not a webinar that ends with a slide that says “good luck.” Real tools, real strategy, real community.
And we are not stopping there. Our next initiative is a virtual course with multiple modules hosted through the Culinary Business Network, designed to help small culinary businesses in any city prepare for major tourism moments, whether that is a World Cup, a Super Bowl, an All-Star weekend, or any large-scale event coming to their market.
Because this problem is not going away. And neither are we.
A Direct Ask
To convention and visitors bureaus in Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, Miami, and every other host city: it is not too late. Reach out to your local small culinary business community now. We can help make that connection.
To corporations investing in World Cup activations and hospitality sponsorships: your dollars can do more than put your logo on a screen. Directing even a portion of your event spending toward locally owned culinary businesses creates economic impact that stays in the community long after the tournament ends. That is the kind of story your stakeholders actually want to tell.
To small culinary business owners in host cities: if you are not connected to your city’s CVB, your local tourism board, or a culinary business network, reach out to us. You belong in this conversation. Feed the Soul Foundation exists to make sure you are in it.
The Bottom Line
We have spent years collecting data, building programs, and making the case that small culinary businesses are not a niche concern. They are economic engines. They are cultural anchors. They are the businesses that feed communities, employ families, and preserve the traditions that make cities worth visiting.
The World Cup is a window. It will close. The question is whether we use the next few weeks to build the relationships and the infrastructure that outlast the final whistle, or whether we let another major economic moment pass without bringing the people who feed our communities to the table.
The path forward has to be one of inclusion, investment, and intentional partnership. That is not just our foundation’s belief. That is what the data demands.
Falayn Ferrell is Executive Director of Feed the Soul Foundation and Managing Partner of Black Restaurant Week. The State of Small Culinary Businesses Industry Report is available to view in full on our website. To learn more about partnership opportunities for the Culinary Business Network, reach out directly to our Programs Director, Karina Fernandez.
