Yes, what about fan zones also? Are they going to have 8-10 of them in the same city? Or one big one? If not there won't be the same capacity. Where are people going to socialise outside of the matches? If everyone is in the same city you need lots of restaurants and bars well beyond the usual needs of that city. Or will most people be expected to stay on a cruise ship or temporary resorts when not at a match? If so you'll be meeting the same people again and again rather than different people. There also won't be the same enjoyment from exploring multiple different cities. Some people will be able to watch 2 matches a day live for the first fortnight. Perhaps even three but I suspect the logistics will be too difficult for that. For most though it will be a restricted experience. Not many people go on a city break for a fortnight or more. Generally they want to see more different places over that length of time. Those that are only going to see their nation's matches will probably be most disappointed.
Can you have a bar without alcohol? I anticipate socializing will be less fun with women subjected to Qatar's strict Muslim rules.
Everything will be less fun. Bearing in mind it was Qatar that broke FIFA's corrupt back it still seems amazing that it is now accepted that Qatar will be going ahead.
I'm no fan of Arab Muslim culture myself, but, as far as I know, in the case of Qatar at least, they don't expect tourists/expats to comply with traditional Muslim modesty codes/gender segregation/alcohol restrictions. Or at least that's what I've heard. It could be worse than I think.
Qatar takes learnings from Russia 2018 and is ‘open’ to 48-team discussion: http://www.insideworldfootball.com/...earnings-russia-2018-open-48-team-discussion/ Would someone please put a lid on this nonsensical idea. Doha will already buckle with the travel of 32 teams.
I disagree strongly, this is my opinion because to me attending a World Cup is MUCH more than just attending matches. I spent 3 and half weeks in both Brazil and Russia and saw 16 matches total between them, but many of my best experiences and memories are the things outside the matches themselves, including the chance to meet and get to know locals and see the sites in the different cities. Doha is one city that from what I can tell, lacks even a single point of interest that I want to see. And I've read that it's unlikely the local Qataris are going to mingle much with us. Also, looking back at Russia, how are they going to cram everybody into one city? The Fan Fests in Moscow and St. Petersburg were often jammed packed, and that's with fans dispersed to all the other host cities too. How can Doha handle everybody in one city all the time? Even if some stay in Dubai or whatever and fly in for matches, it will still be too crowded. And how crowded will restaurants and hotels be? They can build stadiums but they have already admitted they will fall short on delivering the promised number of hotel rooms. I'm envisioning ridiculously priced and overbooked hotels and long lines at restaurants. And how much more atmosphere do we need? Moscow was AMAZING specially in the early group stages when all the teams were in it. Jamming more people into a smaller city isn't going to make it better. I'm still planning on going, but I think this will be a well below average WC experience for us fans for many reasons. And it could end being really bad (and super expensive) with some of the issues I'm anticipating. and I'm not even mentioning the limited access to alcohol!
1. Alcohol will served in licensed bars/clubs (as it already is) and in designated areas. 2. Care to elaborate which rule will prevent you from "socializing" with women?
@Nico Limmat as you've been to Doha, can you tell us wha's the typical price for a pint of beer at a licensed bar or club there? I'm assuming many of these bars are in western hotels, which typically have soulless and very overpriced lobby bars or clubs only. Beer and alcohol in general was very reasonably priced in Russia and even in the touristy center of Moscow. Also, very available everywhere. And if there are a few hundred thousand visitors in Doha all at once (I don't even know what the capacity is), since it's the only city, are there enough bars to accomodate people? The fact is, a huge percentage of WC visitors enjoy a beer or drink and enjoy watching matches in bars. Even in Moscow in the city center the bars were often super crowded and we had some difficulty finding one with even standing room to watch on TV for some of the matches a few times. How is Doha, which I assume has WAY less bars, going to deal with this do you think?
The average pint sets you back about 40-45 riyal (USD 11-12) and yes, just about all bars are in hotels. The current drinking establishments are clearly not enough for this kind of tourist inflow. They will have to create several "fan-fest" areas across the city where alcohol is served. It's the only solution. Sigh...Doha, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Manama and Muscat would have worked so much better. Maybe even Salalah.
And Pork products. I cannot go anywhere that does not have pork or bacon on a menu readily available. It is against my principles.
I would expect these areas to be clearly marked and separate from the general public. Kind of like a concert here in the UAE where alcohol is served outside. Qatar is a bit more strict, generally speaking, but they have to be more flexible for the duration of the tournament. It's really the only solution to make this work.
You piqued my interest and I'd like to know more. Are you saying sun, sea and sex would be fine in Qatar and people are wrong to think sun, sea and salafism?
that's about what I was expecting, quite pricey really. Hopefully, the Fan Fest prices will be lower. And I hope [but unfortunately not expecting] that the choices will be more than just Budweiser like it was in Russia. They actually had a local beer along with Bud at Fan Fest which I thought was even more awful than Bud, which I didn't think was possible. It was 50 roubles cheaper though. I'm still concerned about having enough places to watch though when I think about the numbers involved and how crowded [and large] the Fan Fests in Russia were. Plus, I don't like Fan Fests. A few times is OK, but definitely not for a lot of matches. Standing up under the sun on hard concrete for hours on end isn't fun to me. I'll be 4 years older in 2022 and standing that long is going to hurt even more! yeah I agree, and I was sort of hoping that an expansion to 48 teams in 2022 would include an expansion to other countries. But with the regional turmoil and other issues, plus the fact it's now just 4 years away, I don't see either happening. Getting to see the whole region would be something I could look forward to.
Russia 2018 reportedly had roughly 1 million visitors from other countries. How is Doha going to build enough hotel rooms for even half that many people?
accommodations for WC22 are a MAJOR concern to me. Just for the hell of it, I put in an arbitrary 1-night date in DEC 2018 for Doha and Moscow into booking.com. For Doha it listed just 112 properties. For Moscow it returned 4,334 properties. And yet all of us who went to Moscow can tell you the difficulties in finding lodging in Moscow during WC18. So what's DEC 2022 going to be like? Qatar promised that all these hotels would be built but it didn't and won't happen. Governments can build stadiums but they aren't in the hotel building business. Investors aren't going to build a hotel for a 5 week tournament. So now we're getting these alternatives of tents in the desert and cruise ships docked at the harbor, both of which sound horrible to me. I don't want a cramped cruise ship cabin on a cramped ship with the extra hassle of access of boarding and getting off. The Hotels thread we had for Russia was long and full of many of us complaining how hard and expensive it was, I think the 2018 experience will pale compared to what I think will be the #1 problem for WC2022. There will be WAY more people in Doha than was in the much larger Moscow and WAY less hotel rooms...I don't see this issue resolving itself. I hope I'm wrong.
Haven't you read the technical report. Its not a high risk because all the necessary rooms have been contracted (although only 10% of them existed).
FIFA were quite surprised that people challenged having a Summer WC in Qatar so they certainly won't have given any thought to where people will stay. The only plus on that is the halting of the MATCH greed machine as there will be sod all hotels for them to purloin. As mentioned even a major city like Moscow was all but full in the first week so how will Doha vaguely cope?
The only way I see it working is by pricing people out with fans commuting in from nearby cities for matches and staying one night only in Doha or not at all. Only teams, officials and wealthy fans will stay in Qatar. Mind you flying 50-100,000 in and out each day would use a lot of the airport's capacity and screw up some of their hub business for the month. Combine that with chartering a load of cruise ships for individual nations to sit offshore and dock for their matches. They could also invest in a load of modular hotels to be dismantled and sold off afterwards. It has the potential to be a public relations disaster for Qatar. They must have plans.
Sounds awful! I only went to the Fan Fest once in Russia despite spending 15 days there. Was treated like a second-class citizen upon arrival. I guess its a good option for locals who don't have alot of money and just want to watch the matches on the big screen for free, but for most travelers if that's one of only a few places to get a drink and watch football its going to suck! The drink options aren't good at the Fan Fests (just Budweiser and some watery local beer).
I don't think that's possible. Even taking your lower number of 50,000. A Boeing 777 holds about 400 passengers, so flying an extra 50,000 people in would take 125 extra 777 flights. An Airbus 320 holds just 180 passengers, so it would take an extra 275 of those. Most major airports are already pretty packed for schedule, I don't think they can squeeze in that many more extra flights. Also, where are the aircraft going to come from? It's not like extra planes are sitting around waiting to be used, they'd need to cancel other flights somewhere to get the aircraft. There will be some increase in flights for sure but I don't think it can be that many. I agree with you that this will probably end up being way more expensive than previous WCs. Also, from what I understand it is extremely unlikely the Qataris are going to open up their homes with AirBnB, which was a good source of extra rooms in Russia. I don't see many hostels either for the traveler on a budget.
The only way they could get close to that sort of daily intake of visitors is by using flights that would usually be used by other people. Qatar airport could probably handle 50,000,000 passengers per year by then (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamad_International_Airport). That is 136,986 per day on average by simply dividing that number by 365. Of course half of those are going outbound. Being generous they could cope with 70,000 incomers daily if they do away with all hub activity and just focus on World Cup visitors. I don't know if anybody other than Qatar Airways use the airport as a hub. No doubt their own airline will do what it is told but others would need paying to do so. If they haven't repaired relations with Saudi Arabia then these generous figures look completely impossible. These figures show a big drop on 2016 with 2 million fewer passengers probably caused by Saudi air space restrictions (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_airports_by_international_passenger_traffic). Almost all World Cup visitors will be arriving by air. Does anyone know how many extra passengers went through Russian airports at the beginning of the World Cup? Moscow has three main international airports, there is a large one at Saint Petersburg and several others of decent size in host cities (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_busiest_airports_in_Russia). I would like to know what the Qatari plan is to get visitors in for the World Cup. Half a million fans could want to arrive in a 5 day period. That just isn't going to happen as far as I can see. What about the latter stages when fans want to travel out to see their team because they've done well and others want to travel home because they have done badly? Logistically it looks impossible. Perhaps they intend to re-open the old international airport temporarily. That would surely be difficult and possibly impractical due to flight paths and air traffic control. If someone knows of a plausible logistics plan please reply.
you paint a grim picture but what you're saying makes sense. The FIFA Technical Report called it "Medium Risk" citing the reliance on a single airport. Like with the hotel situation, the comparisons with Russia make me wonder. Air travel was spread around to the airports in all of those host cities, including the huge airports in Moscow and in SPB. Now imagine that on any given day of the WC, taking all those air passengers that were spread among those 14 airports in 12 cities, and cramming them all on that day through a single airport! I just don't get how that is logistically possible with all the security checks, etc, never mind just coming up with the flight volume.