My short answer for Seattle, BTW, is that the PR is probably worth several times the actual visitor count. TV coverage to millions per game is useful, both in the countries playing and the other countries where even smaller games still probably get good numbers. A lot of that will be people who aren't familiar with the city.
Actual hotel numbers have been down compared to our always-busy summer tourist season.
That said, we've hosted a lot of people from Australia, Belgium, and around the US, plus I image mostly US diaspora from Iran, Egypt, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Qatar, and Senegal. A lot of these are people who might have never been here but might come back again. People who come here in the summer tend to say nice things about coming back.
I don't know whether soccer will gain popularity, as it was already doing pretty well here. The excitement probably has legs. Some will depend on whether the Sounders do well, whether the US team does well in the future, the UW, Seattle U, same on the women's side...
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