Boston's visitor economy ran $16.8 billion a year before the big summer — $14.08 billion domestic plus $2.72 billion international — and then 2026 added a World Cup and a 250th anniversary worth more than $1 billion on their own.
The baseline is solid: domestic visitors spent $14.08 billion in Boston in 2025 at an average 3.2-day stay, and international guests — 2.2 million of them — most recently spent $2.72 billion, with Canada alone accounting for $620.7 million, followed by the UK ($241.6M), China ($206.7M), India ($163.8M) and France ($116.5M). The average international trip leaves about $1,105 in the city.
Tourism supports roughly 153,000 jobs statewide; in Boston proper, accommodation and food service employed 60,495 people in 2024 — 8.8% of every job in the city. The Freedom Trail alone walks more than four million people a year past businesses that exist because of them.
Then came the year Boston had been selling for a decade: seven World Cup matches, Sail Boston's tall ships for the 250th, and a July at 89.7% hotel occupancy — the best month ever measured. Organizers put the combined impact above $1 billion; hotel data suggests the summer exceeded it.
The spending pattern matters for travelers: Boston prices on its convention and event calendar, not its seasons. World Cup weeks and college-graduation May are the peaks; the deep-value weeks are January to March, when the same Back Bay five-star that charged $600 in July lists at $250 — and the lobster roll doesn't change.
Our read: Boston's money geography is a bullseye — the closer to Back Bay and the Seaport, the steeper the rate — so the play is to sleep one ring out (Cambridge, Brookline, the South End) and spend the difference where the city is actually world-class: one North End dinner, one Red Sox game, one harbor sail. And if 2026 taught the market anything, it's that Boston's event summers sell out a year ahead; the 2027 calendar is already worth a look.
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