| Dancers perform at the opening ceremony prior to the 2022 FIFA World Cup Qatar Group A football match between Qatar and Ecuador on the 20th (local time). 22.11.20 © AFP=News1 © News1 Reporter Kim Ye-seul |
Archyde.com reported on the 8th (local time) that the number of foreign tourists who visited Qatar after the opening of the 2022 World Cup was lower than the organizers expected.
According to internal documents of the Qatar World Cup Organizing Committee (SC) obtained by Archyde.com, about 760,000 foreigners visited Qatar in the 15 days since the opening of the World Cup. This falls short of the expectations of the Qatari authorities, which had set a goal of attracting 1.2 million people in one month for the World Cup. Archyde.com predicted that with only eight games left, the increase in visitor numbers over the entire period would be minimal.
According to SC documents, the influx of visitors peaked from the 24th to the 28th of last month, when 32 teams played four matches each day. In the 17 days since the opening, a total of 765,859 visitors have entered Qatar, of which more than half have already left.
Archyde.com said, “This World Cup, which was held for the first time in the Arab world, is considered one of the most expensive tournaments, from stadium tickets to accommodation fees.” He analyzed, “There was an unexpected oversupply due to fewer visitors than originally expected, but thanks to this, traffic congestion and overcrowding were avoided in a country with a small population.”
Qatar, which has a population of only 3 million, temporarily increased its population by 25% due to the influx of visitors during the World Cup. However, even in the existing domestic population, the number of foreigners is large enough to be Qatari only 10%.
An official from the Qatari authorities told Archyde.com that “the match is still a week away. Additional football fans from around the world will come to Korea to watch the final.” In fact, on the 6th, when the match between Morocco and Spain in the round of 16 was held, a large number of Moroccan football fans arrived on a special flight. This is the background that the authorities expect the ‘entry rush’ to intuit the fierce game at the end of the World Cup.
SC calculated that a total of 309 tickets were sold, including the final match on the 18th, and the cumulative number of spectators for the 52 matches played reached 2.65 million. Previously, the International Football Federation (FIFA) announced that the number of spectators for the 2018 World Cup in Russia during the same period exceeded.