As hotels in the City of SeaTac prepare to house World Cup fans this summer, local leaders want to ensure that hospitality staff are prepared to respond to opioid overdoses.
The World Cup kicks off next month and communities across the Puget Sound region are preparing to host soccer fans from around the world. The international tournament will hold six of its matches in Seattle, which could draw up to 750,000 visitors to the area.
With that in mind, SeaTac is distributing naloxone to local hotels so their staff can access the opioid overdose reversal medication if they come across a guest who has overdosed on fentanyl or other opioids.
Will Lugo, the emergency management administrator for Puget Sound Regional Fire Authority, explained that hotel staff are front-line workers and could be the first on the scene of an overdose, so having this medication on hand could be crucial.
“Housekeeping, making up the rooms, they could stumble on to someone who’s overdosed and not know what to do,” he said. “So, I think educating and training the front line workers is valuable to save lives.”
Lugo hopes that distributing this medication will inspire hotels across the city to reach out for more training in the future.
The community is home to the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and boasts that it has approximately 6,000 hotel rooms. Local leaders expect a number of those rooms will be filled with World Cup fans this summer.
The city is partnering with the local tourism authority Explore Seattle Southside to distribute naloxone to approximately 30 hotels, according to the group’s CEO, Mark Everton. Along with naloxone kits and instructions on how to use it, the tourism authority is sending out resources to explain how visitors should call 911 and how to interpret food safety ratings at restaurants and food stands.
Everton explained that distributing naloxone, also called Narcan, to all the hotels makes it more likely that hospitality staff will be able to respond to an overdose.
“Almost every hotel has got a go bag, usually behind the front desk. This way we’ll know that there are Narcan in that go bag if they have an overdose situation, either in or around the property.”
According to SeaTac Deputy Mayor Senayet Negusse, the city needs to be proactive, especially since the region already sees a high number of overdose deaths. In 2025, King County reported 914 confirmed overdose deaths, the majority involving fentanyl.
“In a city like SeaTac, where thousands of travelers move through our hotels every day, hospitality workers are often the first to encounter a crisis,” Negusse wrote in a statement provided to KNKX. “When we equip staff with knowledge and lifesaving tools, we turn moments of danger into moments of intervention, and ultimately, we save lives.”
World Cup festivities will span over a month, with the first match in Seattle scheduled for June 15 and the last, July 6.
