Fifty days before the World Cup starts in Qatar, workers are pouring concrete and hammering through the night to ready luxury hotels and bargain ap. Hundreds of migrants are labouring inside the 211 mt (696 ft) high Katara Towers, shaped like intertwined scimitar swords, where VIP.
The wealthiest will shell out thousands of dollars per night for rooms with marble wine cellars and a lobby with one of the world's biggest chandeliers. The windows are made of smoked glasses in yet to be installed structure in the Lusail seafront close to the stadium that will host the final.
Everyone is working around the clock said one engineer on the project. It will be touch and go whether everything is installed to suit people paying so much. A spokesperson for the Accor group, which will run the Fairmont and Raffles hotels in Katara Towers, insisted they would be ready for FIFA guests during the World Cup and then officially open after the tournament.
Forty km (25 miles) away in Barwa Barahat Al Janoub, laborers are working for the apartments to be ready apartments for fans paying $84 a night for a steel bed in a shared room. The Barwa complex, out in the semi-desert, is expected to house more than 7,500 World Cup fans and will later be used for the thousands of foreign workers who keep Qatar's oil- and gas-fuelled economy moving.
A spokesperson for the Qatar organising committee said, “All of the accommodation options at the FIFA World Cup 2022 will be ready in good time before fans, teams, and officials arrive in Qatar for the tournament." A ‘comfortable inventory’ exists for teams and fans. Positioned at opposite extremes, the sword-shaped towers, and austere workers' rooms will play key roles in housing supporters of the 32 nations taking part in the World Cup from November 2022.
Organisers say that more than one million fans will visit and that 130,000 rooms will be usable in hotels, apartments, cruise ships, and desert tents. In Doha port, there will be three cruise ships that can handle up to 13,000 people paying between $179 and $800 a night.
For $423 a night some supporters will be in traditional but air-conditioned tents on a beachfront at Al Khor, north of Doha, with an en-suite bathroom, flat-screen televisions, and other luxury trappings. One thousand bedouin-style tents are also being put up where fans can experience Qatari-style camping without air conditioning. Some Qatari landlords are trying to cash in on the World Cup, demanding $4,000-plus a night for Doha apartments. One two-bedroom chalet is advertised on booking .com at nearly $ 50,000 a night.
While 80 percent of Doha's 30,000 hotel rooms are reserved by FIFA, some open market suites are being advertised at $5,500 a night. "There is a lot of negotiating to go on over prices," said one Doha travel executive. Nasser Al-Khater, Chief Executive of the World Cup Qatar organisers, said official accommodation was being subsidised to keep prices down. "The private sector also provides housing units and they have the right to determine the price they see suitable," he said.
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