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Qatar has chosen Accor, Europe’s largest hotel business, to manage apartments and villas for World Cup fans visiting Qatar next year, the Cup’s organizing committee announced on Thursday (Oct 28).
In a statement, Qatar’s Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy announced it has signed an agreement with Accor to manage operations and services across its host nation real estate portfolio until the end of 2022.
Hassan al Thawadi, the head of Qatar’s organizing body, was quoted as saying that the decision to make full use of the Gulf Arab state’s existing residential, apartments, and villas will ensure that the country has “a sustainable hotel market that does not leave Qatar with excess permanent hotel rooms post-2022.”
A separate Qatari official told Reuters that Accor will offer workers to manage and administer more than 60,000 rooms in homes and villas around the Gulf Arab state.
Organizers of the 2018 World Cup in Qatar expect to draw 1.2 million tourists throughout the 28-day event, which begins in November. According to figures issued in August by the Qatar National Tourism Authority, Qatar has fewer than 30,000 hotel rooms in operation. Qatar has a population of 2.9 million people, with 85 percent of them being foreigners. Qatar has one of the greatest per capita incomes in the world as the world’s largest producer of liquefied natural gas.
