Editor's note: This is Sloth Bear Sports' specially curated "B-side Qatar", which tells all the interesting and fun business stories before and after the 2022 World Cup.
Less than 90 days before the opening of the World Cup, Jiao Zhidong, a Chinese businessman in Doha, still feels that the atmosphere in the whole city is "quiet".
Jiao Zhidong has been living in Qatar for 11 years, initially doing the raw material accessories business of glass curtain walls, and began to transform into a homestay service in 2013. The "Focus Chinese Business Center" he founded mainly provides a series of life services such as accommodation, catering and vehicles for domestic manufacturers and units contracting projects in the local area.
Jiao Zhidong told Lazy Bear Sports that most of his clients are involved in infrastructure-related projects in the local area. This is an important part of Qatar's National Vision 2030. Qatar is expected to invest more than $222 billion in preparation for the World Cup, of which $150 billion will be spent on infrastructure, including seven new stadiums. Other urban upgrades include the construction of a new underground transportation system and the renewal of the entire urban water and drainage system in the desert country to cope with the extreme rainstorms of winter brought about by climate change.
Lucer stadium under construction.
The largest order for the "Focus Chinese Business Center" occurred in 2017, receiving nearly 280 Chinese labor workers involved in the construction of the subway, Jiao Zhidong recalled: "All 40 subway stations were installed by this Chinese team. ”
Turning around the 2018 World Cup in Russia, the number of Chinese fans ranked first among inbound international tourists. From the perspective of market demand alone, Jiao Zhidong's homestay business is expected to usher in a high point during the Qatar World Cup.
But the actual factors that determine the market are far more than supply and demand. Even when there is a serious imbalance between supply and demand, there is a huge divergence between the way organization managers and market operators think and solve problems – the latter is eager for economic benefits, while the former wants to give priority to ensuring that the event runs smoothly.
Qatar's biggest problem is that there are so few rooms available for fans. According to fifa, as of August 16, qatar had sold 2.45 million tickets (a total of about 3 million votes), and the World Cup organizing committee expects more than 1.2 million international fans to enter the country during the event. But according to Reuters, citing the Qatar Tourism Board, the actual number of hotel rooms that can serve fans may be less than 50,000 (originally about 90,000 hotel rooms), and a considerable number will be reserved for teams, officials and sponsors.
According to Qatar's official account, the failure to build more hotels before the event began was to avoid leaving behind a large number of expensive but long-term practical value of the "White Elephant Project", after all, Qatar has only 2 million permanent residents. But the more core and fundamental reason is that as a country that not only hosts the competition, but also realizes the diversification and upgrading of the industry, and lacks a working population, Qatar has too much to do, and their own energy is very limited. For the event, the construction of 7 new stadiums and 1 renovated stadium are dead tasks that must be completed, with a much higher priority than the construction of new hotels and apartments.
The impact of the "severance of diplomatic relations" on Qatar in 2017 cannot be ignored. The strict land border and air blockade severely affected Qatar's infrastructure procurement and logistics network, including the lives of local residents. Jiao Zhidong recalled to Lazy Bear Sports: "At that time, there was no milk, and (the government) could only buy cows from Australia and rebuild the farm to produce milk. ”
Faced with the eventually such a large accommodation gap, officials have proposed several different solutions. For example, a "fan village" with a lower cost to build, but an overly rudimentary appearance was complained about by some fans before the game to "live in a mobile board house"; Another example is renting a luxury yacht to provide accommodation – which may have a festive party atmosphere than qatar's strict alcohol restrictions; They also pulled in the Gulf brothers who had restored diplomatic relations and shared the pressure of accommodation.
Concept map of the Fan Village located around the city of Doha (Image from the official World Cup website)
According to official estimates, the four airlines in the Middle East will have nearly 200 flights to and from Qatar every day, providing nearly 20,000 fans with a "ferry" service to "go to live in neighboring countries after watching the ball".
Although the above 3 B schemes have been proposed, many international fans are still dissatisfied with the fact that Qatari officials are currently facing such huge pressure to receive the event, and actually adopt an attitude of turning away ticketless "tourists".
According to Qatari government regulations, between 1 November 2022 and 23 January 2023, you must have an official "Fan Passport" Hayya Card to be allowed to enter the country. Only by obtaining tickets for the World Cup matches can you apply for hayya Card.
In international competitions, the "Fan Passport" is not a new tool. In the past, the host country has provided convenience for them to enter the country and take the city's transportation by issuing fan passports to international audiences. This time, it became an entry permit, closing the door to ticketless travelers. For the host country, this is a large tourism loss. According to data jointly released by flight search engine Skycanner and Ctrip, more than 100,000 Chinese to Russia during the 2018 World Cup, of which 31,000 were ticketless passengers.
In fact, the Qatar Tourism Board has also proposed an accommodation plan called "holiday home" that allows local hosts to rent on platforms such as Airbnb or VRBO. But in the view of Jiao Zhidong, the "landlord" of Doha, this plan may not be easy to use in the local area.
The first reason is due to differences in religious practices. Jiao Zhidong told Lazy Bear Sports, "In more than 10 years of living in Doha, I have never entered the door of my neighbor Qatari family." The second reason is that very few foreign landlords have a house for rent in the local area – the experience of "speculation fever", which has appeared in almost every international competition in the past, has almost completely failed in Qatar.
Regarding the phenomenon of "speculation fever" in the competition, the most well-known to the Chinese people is the rising house price brought about by the Beijing Olympics. From the successful bid for the Olympic Games in 2001 to the 2008 Olympic Games, the average price of residential commercial housing in Beijing rose from 4716 yuan to 11648 yuan, an increase of 147%.
A more recent example occurred after Tokyo won the right to host the Olympics. Around 2014, a large number of Individual Chinese investors went on a shopping spree near Tokyo. From 2013 to 2018, the average price of real estate in Tokyo rose by 23%, surpassing the previous 15-year increase.
But for a long time, foreign citizens were not eligible to buy a house in Qatar. It was not until March 2019 that international investors were allowed to use or own landed immovable property in a limited number of local areas. Therefore, compared with Tokyo and other places with high occupancy rates (developed tourism), freehold property rights, and low purchase thresholds, Qatar has dissuaded countless foreign investors who are keen to buy and invest.
The third reason, the strict entry restrictions, also make the business of local "homestay merchants" full of uncertainty.
Jiao admits that his occupation can be described as an "intermediary" — after all, the rent he operates has no property rights. In such a situation, he needs to plan how many houses to "build" at the beginning of each year according to the actual accommodation needs. The Qatari government stipulates that each local resident with an ID card can host 10 international fan accommodations. International fans have accommodation and tickets before they can apply for a Hayya Card for entry permits. According to Jiao Zhidong's understanding at this stage, the Number of Chinese fans who plan to watch the game from China is far less than in previous competitions.
Several uses of the Hayya Card for fans' passports during the Qatar World Cup.
Jiao Zhidong introduced that local houses are generally rented out on an annual basis. For him, it is necessary to strictly control the cost in the early stage, "the World Cup is one month, but my cost is one year." Therefore, falling on the consumer side, whether it is official accommodation or "holiday home" accommodation plans, price increases are inevitable.
An industry insider who has been engaged in the international tourism industry for many years also confirmed this phenomenon to Lazy Bear Sports. The person believes that in addition to the strict entry requirements, the biggest problem is that the tourism agency can provide too few other services to the fans, "only one ticket, the fans do not need to sign up for the tour." At the same time, due to the limited resources of accommodation and the small number of optional spaces, it will cause customers to have a negative perception of "price exaggeration". In addition, the cost of isolation time brought about by the epidemic is also an important factor affecting travel.
After the third round of ticket sales closed, Jiao Zhidong exchanged messages with friends of the domestic fan club, and it is expected that less than 200 people in the organization plan to watch the game. He joked that it would be better to turn his residence into a "media home", "fans may stay for a few days, watch a few games and leave, but the media can stay for a month." "Unlike the vast territory of Russia, in Qatar there is little need to change residences.
According to lazy bear sports, it is expected that nearly 400 Chinese media members will report in the front, mainly CCTV and Xinhua News Agency. Perhaps this World Cup, for Chinese fans, will return to the single screen era from a vivid live full-scene experience.
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