Qatar found itself facing 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 for this weekend. Archyde.com”.
This is far from the warnings of Qatari officials before the tournament, including the CEO of Qatar Airways, and fan groups such as the Football Fans Europe Group, that they will face a deficit, which prompted the organizers to arrange additional accommodation in villas, apartments, cruise ships, temporary cabins and even desert camps. .
Doha real estate owners expected a huge boom as a result of the 1.2 million visitors, with numbers expected to peak between November 24 and 28, but the surplus has caused rents to drop and will have spillover effects on the broader real estate market, some real estate brokers said. Archyde.com”.
Real estate agents, housing companies and tenants say some landlords in the tiny Gulf state had sought unbelievably high rents in the run-up to the event, leaving thousands of rooms vacant.
Many fans chose to stay outside Doha and commute to watch the matches, using up to 500 daily shuttle trips from nearby cities such as Dubai.
The head of Qatar Airways said that these flights were partly organized in anticipation of what he called a “lack of accommodation”.
“We contacted half the city and all the big real estate companies… They didn’t seem interested,” said a real estate broker who has worked on international sporting events and asked not to be named for business 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 November 20 it was $250 a night.
Qatar’s Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, the organizers of the tournament, did not respond to a Archyde.com request for an update on available rooms or why the expected housing shortage did not materialize.
Organizers say there is a range of accommodations available, from $80 rooms on the outskirts of Doha’s desert per night to rooms on luxury cruise ships, some of which cost thousands of dollars a day.
As for the nights in the remaining peak period, the official residence portal showed, on Friday, available rooms in 42 hotels and in villas and apartments. Booking.com has rooms in 73 properties and the (AirBNB) website 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 Archyde.com.
How did the fans move to Dubai?
Thousands of fans settled in Dubai, making the grueling day-long trek to Qatar’s capital Doha via hour-long shuttles connecting cities during the tournament.
Fans from the participating countries chose Dubai’s lively nightlife scene over the quiet Doha atmosphere, 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 solely to watch the World Cup in Qatar is likely to be less 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 now operating almost at full capacity.
In September, the latest available statistics showed that the average occupancy was around 140,000 available rooms across Dubai, or 71 percent, with the average daily rate higher by about a quarter than in 2019.
The pearl is vacant
And the suffering from the high cost was not limited to visitors from abroad.
The real estate broker said that while owners cut prices as the tournament approached, many tried to secure short-term deals at high prices that often prompted tenants to leave, the agency said.
Long-term rents in Qatar increased more than 30 percent in the third quarter, while some landlords asked prospective tenants to sign two-year contracts at current prices, said a report released Sept. 30 by real estate services firm Cushman & Wakefield.
Archyde.com spoke to long-term tenants in five apartment buildings 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 would not renew the contract until after the World Cup.
The woman, who refused to publish her name or mention the name of the owner of the property, added that he had stipulated that she leave her furniture in the apartment so that he could rent it 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 she had to rent a temporary apartment because her brothers, who love football, bought tickets for the tournament.