WORLD CUP 2022 – FIASCO IN THE MAKING

So Qatar got (bought?) the World Cup. May it live to regret it.

The pitch was that they would build 12 air-conditioned stadiums and then give that technology and the materials away to construct 3rd world soccer stadiums. It’s a charming pitch, so much so that I could envision why the FIFA voting board, stocked with internationalists from the 3rd world, would be moved by the Emir’s benevolence.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions, (and perhaps a few well-placed bribes serve as bypasses). What is actually going to happen? Qatar has 200,000 citizens and about 1.2 million guest-workers. Qatar’s security forces are staffed almost entirely by Omani conscripts. Qatar receives about 1 million tourist visits per year – by comparison, South Africa took in 1 million visitors for the 2010 World Cup in 1 month. This is a massive administrative challenge and the assumption seems to be that the Qataris are wealthy enough to spend away any problems.

Are there limits to the power of oil money? This is the first in a series of posts on what those limits might be.

Where will they stay?
Let’s assume that Qatar’s international airport can take everyone in – after all, if one thing is good about Qatar, it’s the airline. Where are these people going to stay? One might assume that Qatar can spend its way to enough hotel rooms in 12 years. But let’s not underestimate the challenge. As of 2009, Qatar had about 8500 hotel rooms. By 2012, that number is projected to grow, based on in-construction hotels, to about 10,700 hotel rooms.

One does not have to have mastered calculus to be concerned about the ratio of available units to people. Let’s say that Qatar should expect 1 million visitors over 1 month. Let’s say each visitor stays an average of 1/3 of a month and shares a room with 1 other person, on average. By that estimate, Qatar would need about 167,000 hotel rooms. I restate – in 2012, it will have 10,700. In other words, conservatively, Qatar will have to add 1.5 times as many hotel rooms as it currently has EVERY YEAR FOR 10 YEARS starting in 2012 just to meet World Cup demand. These hotel rooms will be relevant for 30 days, after which they will be completely superfluous. Even for a Gulf State, that is an epic waste of money, assuming they can pull it off.

But if they cannot, what are their options?

- Neighboring countries:
o Saudi Arabia is the only country that shares a border with Qatar. It is difficult to conceive of the Saudis relaxing their strong visa and social interaction restrictions to let World Cup revelers pass back and forth.
o Bahrain – the neighborhood party town, Bahrain will undoubtedly bear a large burden in absorbing the influx of travellers. Even still, this will create visa complications and force travellers to take ferries to games in large volumes. Moreover, Bahrain is simply not large enough by itself to make up the difference in needed hotel rooms to actual rooms.
o It’s possible, indeed highly desirable, that Qatar would reach out to the United Arab Emirates’ massive tourist facilities for help. But the two do not share a border. Perhaps Qatar will be forced to arrange for wide-ranging ferry services for those seeking to attend games.
o Iran is the only other country within reasonable distance, lying across the Persian Gulf. It is difficult to project the political trajectory of Iran 14 years out, but it is difficult to imagine a large contingent of the world’s soccer fans taking up residence in the sparsely populated Iranian coastal region to endure lengthy ferry rides to games.
o The final possibility is that Qatar can try to set up some system of flying people in and out of regional cities to games, which adds prohibitively to the cost and makes the airport the bottleneck.

- Refugee Camps – Ok, this is a bit of hyperbole, but honestly, Qatar’s only option may be to put up temporary shelter and offer it for free. Perhaps large ships will be allowed to dock and act as floating hotels. Given the summer heat and the general lack of things to do in Qatar, one could quickly imagine these camps and boats becoming dens of heat exhaustion or worse.

- Fewer visitors. The final, most likely option, is that the lack of places to stay and the other problems with the choice of host will lead visitors to vote with their feet and simply not attend. For the most part, these are not cheap hotels and hostels that Qatar is offering. These are high-end, luxury hotels designed to operate at low occupancy rates and high prices. These prices are likely to become worse with a glut of World Cup travelers unless artificially kept low by the host government.

In the end, Qatar's best residency option may be to hope that it is so unattractive as a host - pricey, hot, and boring - that no one shows up to create a hotel crisis.