K West hotel
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Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Qatar Hotels May Feel Post-World Cup Blues
On the 2nd of December the FIFA surprisingly decided to select Qatar as country to host the Football World Cup in 2022. Qatar will have the honor to be the first Middle Eastern nation to host the event, but will also face major challenges during, and after world cup in order to fill up a massive quantity of rooms created for the occasion. The questions we could ask ourselves are what will happen with all these buildings after World Cup ends? Will investors have a good return? What future for the Qatar workers in hospitality industry?
Nowadays the country has a capacity of 44 000 rooms. According to Qatar plans, they should build an astonishing quantity of 55 000 supplementary rooms in order to satisfy tourists demand. These projects will of course boost the economy creating a lot of jobs, and bringing money from local and international investors. But for people working in the hospitality field, there are several problems to face.
Nowadays the country has a capacity of 44 000 rooms. According to Qatar plans, they should build an astonishing quantity of 55 000 supplementary rooms in order to satisfy tourists demand. These projects will of course boost the economy creating a lot of jobs, and bringing money from local and international investors. But for people working in the hospitality field, there are several problems to face.
One of them is the fact that the weather can be extremely hot in summer. Temperatures over 50 degrees Celsius are frequent. Even if football fields are constructed with air conditioning what would tourists do during the day? To avoid this problem, tourists may chose to stay shortly in Qatar or just come for the matches, avoiding long-distance flights and bringing down the hotels demand for rooms. One of the solutions to this problem would be to play World Cup during winter, which would be a premiere. But this solution has a considerable impact on the players and the schedules of different clubs championships. All calendars should actually be reorganized.
If we put aside the weather issue, our central preoccupation is what will happen after World Cup to buildings, and most of all, people.
Concerning buildings, in my opinion, it is fundamental that a big proportion is constructed with pre-fabricated and removable or recyclable materials. Hopefully, it is a solution they will adopt, because it is far from sure the occupancy room rate could be maintained over a good period of time, in order to absorb all the hospitality supply. Just to give some figures, currently, Qatar is only facing with occupancy levels next to 61 percent for the first half of this year. It is though legitimate to doubt about the ability of Qatar to attract a flow of people that could fill up almost 100 000 rooms easily.
Concerning people, it is very difficult to calculate the impact, but for sure, many of them will face problems to keep their jobs in hospitality after world cup. As a solution, Qatar could make contracts especially for young people or students willing to get a first experience in hospitality area. The special program would deliver special working visas for people from abroad. Those people would then only come for a limited period of time. If the flow of people continues to arrive, contracts could be renewed.
In conclusion, the organization of the World Cup is a big challenge in terms of logistic for Qatar and for the FIFA. It should be positive for Gulf countries in the region that could beneficiate from it. But if buildings are made to last in time, they could easily be empty after the event, leaving many people without jobs. But the Qatar Tourism Authority is confident the event will have a good impact on the economy diversification. They have an objective of 1 million visitors per year and a growth of 20 percent over the next five years…
If we put aside the weather issue, our central preoccupation is what will happen after World Cup to buildings, and most of all, people.
Concerning buildings, in my opinion, it is fundamental that a big proportion is constructed with pre-fabricated and removable or recyclable materials. Hopefully, it is a solution they will adopt, because it is far from sure the occupancy room rate could be maintained over a good period of time, in order to absorb all the hospitality supply. Just to give some figures, currently, Qatar is only facing with occupancy levels next to 61 percent for the first half of this year. It is though legitimate to doubt about the ability of Qatar to attract a flow of people that could fill up almost 100 000 rooms easily.
Concerning people, it is very difficult to calculate the impact, but for sure, many of them will face problems to keep their jobs in hospitality after world cup. As a solution, Qatar could make contracts especially for young people or students willing to get a first experience in hospitality area. The special program would deliver special working visas for people from abroad. Those people would then only come for a limited period of time. If the flow of people continues to arrive, contracts could be renewed.
In conclusion, the organization of the World Cup is a big challenge in terms of logistic for Qatar and for the FIFA. It should be positive for Gulf countries in the region that could beneficiate from it. But if buildings are made to last in time, they could easily be empty after the event, leaving many people without jobs. But the Qatar Tourism Authority is confident the event will have a good impact on the economy diversification. They have an objective of 1 million visitors per year and a growth of 20 percent over the next five years…
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
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