Hotel Bookings, Ticket Sales Indicate Public Interest in Sports

A comprehensive image of global public interest in sports can be seen by analyzing the statistics of two upcoming world tournaments, namely the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics and the 2018 Russia World Cup.

Pyeongchang 2018 has revealed that 61% of available tickets have been sold for next year’s Winter Olympics in South Korea slated for February 9-25, Insidethegames.biz reported.

The figure, which includes domestic and international sales, may come as a relief to organizers as it shows a significant increase from two months ago.

The current number of tickets sold stands at 655,000 out of 1.07 million tickets available, almost twice as many as had been sold in October when the figure was just 30.3%.

Skiing events have proved to be the most popular with 81% of Alpine tickets sold and cross-country events just two per cent behind. Short track speed skating has also sold relatively well with 74% of tickets sold.

However, after reports that organizations such as banks were buying up tickets to help with sales figures, it is uncertain who has acquired the latest batch.

Two sports which could be worried by the latest update are biathlon and Nordic Combined, both of which are yet to hit the 50% sold mark with biathlon on 41% and Nordic Combined on 47%.

The opening ceremony, which will take place at the Pyeongchang Olympic Stadium, has sold 67% of its tickets with its Closing Ceremony counterpart currently on 35%.

According to Yonhap New Agency, the event’s organizing committee says that ticket sales have increased dramatically due to the start of the torch relay, which began in South Korea on November 1.

The organizing committee also claims that the recent opening of the new high-speed railway between Seoul and Pyeongchang will further increase ticket sales.

Benefits for Olympic ticket holders include discounts on train tickets, free access to shuttle buses and toll exemptions on highways to Pyeongchang and other hosting areas.

After recording sales figures of just 0.2% for the Winter Paralympics in early October, Yonhap has now reported that this figure has increased to 37% with 81,000 of the 220,000 tickets having been sold.

The Pyeongchang games will be followed by the Paralympics scheduled for March 9 to 18.

 FIFA World Cup

People have also shown interest in the other world tournaments of 2018. Ticket sale for World Cup peaked at 742,760 in the first phase.

Over 2.3 million tickets have been requested during phase 2  sales which started on December 5, with Russian fans leading the list of nationalities followed by their counterparts from Argentina, Mexico, Peru, Brazil, Colombia, USA, Spain, Germany, Egypt and China, FIFA reported on its website.

Beside the ticket sale, hotel booking also peaked 75% of the available rooms.

According to newindianexpress.com, up to three-quarters of Moscow hotel rooms have already been sold out for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, whereas only three weeks ago, this figure was 10% lower, Nikolay Gulyaev, head of the Moscow City Department of Sport and Tourism, said.

“I would not try to predict how this number is divided up between foreign and Russian fans, however (I could suggest) that the majority are Russians. Up to 75% of hotels have been booked for these dates (2018 FIFA World Cup), but three weeks ago, before the World Cup draw, it was 10% lower. The price levels are as follows: a one-star hotel room would cost about 5,000 rubles ($85), while a five- star accommodation would run for 50,000 rubles ($850),” the official said.

“Currently, Moscow has 1,183 hotels available for booking, at different rating levels. Next year, we’ll have even more hotels on offer and will open new accommodation sites. We are monitoring the prices and have already revealed 33 cases of price gouging, specifically for the dates of the championship. We registered similar cases of price spikes during the recent FIFA Confederations Cup, then, we were able to convince the hotels to scale down the prices. However, the temptation still remains high”, Gulyaev noted.

The 2018 Russia-hosted FIFA World Cup will take place in 11 Russian cities from June 14 to July 15.