Qatar has been faced with an unexpected abundance of rooms in the crowded group stage of the World Cup, as websites offer rooms in at least 42 hotels and Airbnb offers hundreds of options this weekend.Reuters.”
This is a far cry from pre-tournament warnings from Qatari officials, including the CEO of Qatar Airways, and fan groups such as Football Fans Europe Group, that they will face a shortfall, which has prompted organizers to arrange further accommodation in villas, apartments , cruise ships, temporary cabins and even desert camps. .
Doha property owners had expected a huge boom following an influx of 1.2 million visitors, with numbers expected to peak between November 24 and 28, but the surplus has caused rents to fall and will have spillover effects on the broader housing market, according to some real estate agents. Reuters”.
Realtors, real estate companies and tenants say some landlords in the tiny Gulf state had asked for incredibly high rents ahead of the event, leaving thousands of rooms vacant.
Many fans chose to stay outside of Doha and commute to watch the games, using up to 500 shuttle rides a day from nearby cities such as Dubai.
The Qatar Airways boss said these flights were partly organized in anticipation of what he called a “shortage of accommodation”.
“We contacted half the city and all the big real estate companies… They didn’t seem interested,” said a real estate agent who has worked on international sporting events and asked not to be named for work reasons.
The broker cited the example of a two-bedroom apartment in Doha that was renting for $1,200 a night in early October, but a week before the start of the World Cup on Nov. 20, it cost $250 at night.
Qatar’s Supreme Committee for Surrender and Legacy, organizers of the tournament, did not respond to a request from Reuters for an update on available rooms or why the projected housing shortage has not materialised.
Organizers say a range of accommodation is available, from rooms for $80 on the desert outskirts of Doha a night to rooms on luxury cruise liners, some costing thousands of dollars a day.
As for the nights in the remaining peak period, the official portal of the residences, on Friday, showed rooms available in 42 hotels and in villas and apartments, Booking.com has rooms in 73 structures and the site (AirBNB) showed 503 homes .
Eleven days before the start of the tournament, organizers said there were at least 25,000 rooms available for each night of the World Cup, according to Reuters.
How did fans move to Dubai?
Thousands of fans have settled in Dubai, making the grueling day trip to Qatar’s capital Doha via hour-long shuttles that connect the cities during the tournament.
Fans from participating countries preferred Dubai’s vibrant nightlife to the laid-back atmosphere of Doha, according to a report.Financial Times“.
With 60 daily flights between Dubai and Doha, up to 350,000 people can be transported from the region’s tourism hub for the duration of the tournament, which is expected to host around 1.5 million visitors.
Officials say the number of fans visiting Dubai just to watch the World Cup in Qatar is likely to be fewer than tens of thousands, or the equivalent of a three percentage point increase in hotel occupancy.
Many of the match tickets were sold to expatriates in the Gulf, including some of the more than 100,000 Britons living in the Emirates.
Many hotels in Dubai are operating almost at full capacity.
In September, the latest available statistics showed that average occupancy was around 140,000 available rooms across Dubai, or 71%, with the average daily rate about a quarter higher than in 2019.
The pearl is empty
And the suffering from the high cost was not limited to visitors from abroad.
The realtor said that while landlords have cut prices as the tournament approaches, many have tried to secure short-term deals at high prices that often prompted tenants to leave, the agency said.
Long-term rents in Qatar rose more than 30% in the third quarter as some landlords asked prospective tenants to sign two-year contracts at current prices, according to a report released Sept. 30 by property services firm Cushman & Wakefield.
Reuters spoke to long-term tenants in five apartment blocks and two apartment complexes in Doha who said that in the months leading up to the tournament, landlords had refused to renew annual contracts and raised the rent.
And in the Pearl, an upscale residential area built on an artificial island, a 30-year-old Tunisian woman whose lease expired in October said her landlord told her he wouldn’t renew the lease until after the World Cup.
The woman, who refused to publish her name or to mention the name of the owner of the property, added that he had arranged for her to leave her furniture in the apartment so she could rent it out furnished.
“I found myself forced to accept his offer,” she said, adding that she was afraid of committing to a high rent for too long.
But he had to rent a temporary apartment because his soccer-loving brothers bought tickets for the tournament.
