Qatar 2022: How India’s Growing Sports Tourism Market Pushes World Cup
Qatar 2022: How India’s Growing Sports Tourism Market Pushes World Cup. Out of the 1.8 million tickets that were sold during the first two phases of Qatar World Cup 2022, more than 23,500 tickets were bought by Indian fans. In Phase 1, which was just launched, India ranked seventh in ticket sales. At Russia 2018, almost 18,000 fans from India were in attendance. In general worldwide, though India ranked third in attendance numbers at Russia 2018 behind only the United States and China.
It comes as an interesting contrast that the country that has a team ranked 58th for female players and 104th for men and never even played on the world stage, yet has the most viewership for soccer of any country by a large margin. Soccer fans from India’s male captain Sunil Chhetri posted a video encouraging attendence at the game at Kolkata in June to help improve their chances to qualify for this year’s Asian Cup.
The video is representative of the state of Indian football. The video in which one of India’s greatest athletes, Sunil Chhetri requests fans to come watch his team play, had a positive result and helped sell out stadiums despite the quality being poor.
It was reported that the funding of the All India Football Federation (AIFF) had been slashed by 85% in May this year. Just last month, FIFA temporarily banned India over third-party influence.
The poor performance of the men’s team, the lack of structure in the women’s game and inadequate development at the grassroots level were cited as reasons for the budget cut. 160 million households: In January in a survey conducted on behalf of FC Goa, YouGov showed that there are 160 million households in India for football. The passionate interest for the sport is clearly present and it’s just a matter of where this money is being allocated to.
The issue for Indian fans is that they only have a certain culture of football, and it has been misportrayed to the rest of the world that India doesn’t have any football fans. This is due to the number of fans that support European soccer being much larger than how few Indian soccer supporter there are.
As one of the core members of the Blue Pilgrims – a group of supporters who follow India’s men’s and women’s soccer teams – Banerjee understands how fans view India’s football team. Although football has become a global identifier for young people, the lack of success by India on the international stage has made it difficult for fans to identify themselves with the sport.
The reason fans of a football club support it and travel to watch it and other games is to express themselves in a way they feel is larger than themselves, while also connecting with something which is more successful and positive. Fans of the World Cup in India still share an identity closely related to football, but this connection has gone beyond their own state boundaries.
In this article, he explains how Brazil and Argentina’s fan groups are like political parties that support their national soccer teams. There are separate “offices” for each fan group to watch matches with large murals up to fifteen metres high. Supporters will usually go out and decorate the streets in player cutouts in order to participate in the frenzy of the game.
These rivalry run deep. One hilarious scene depicts the battle between fan groups in the middle of the night, with no one present but a church parish.
Engaged by Argentina’s triumphs, Rakesh Pai is a passionate fan of the Albiceleste. Together with his son, he only remembers Maradona crying moments before the final in 1990; that same definitive memory still remains strong in their minds.
At the 2010 World Cup, Pai had fallen deeply in love with the passion of Argentina, which resonated with his own, and was given new hope as he watched them play.
In 2014, Pai traveled to Brazil with his wife and brother. Pai and his brother also learned Spanish in order to mingle with other Argentine fans. These friendships were rekindled at the 2018 World Cup in Russia.
With the World Cup, Qatar 2022 will be Pai’s fourth. He mentioned that at a recent party, many people his friends and acquaintances have been asking about ticketing and pricing for the World Cup. They often don’t consider themselves ardent football supporters. The perceived difficulty in obtaining a visa is what keeps people away from visiting other far-flung countries like India, Pai thinks.
There were some communication issues with Brazil and South Africa, but it was never a problem to get a visa. But, when we got the visa through immigration, we realised ‘Oh, this process is so simple’. Middle East culture and lifestyle comforts are hard to ignore for Indians. There are over 750,000 people in Qatar who are of Indian descent out of the country’s total population of 2 million people.
Starting at only 40 Rials ($11 or 876 Indian Rupees), Qatar residents can pre-book tickets to the World Cup. In addition, they are allowed to bring along non-residents for events that are open to guests such as non-matches and expos.
The close proximity of the stadiums is a benefit for travelling fans as well, but this is one of the reasons why longtime football fan and co-founder of the fabled Bengaluru FC supporters group West Block Blues, Rakesh Haridas is not eager to attend next year’s World Cup in Qatar.
World Cup 2022 in the Middle East doesn’t excite me. That’s all it is: just a chance to visit a country after traveling all the way around the world. Russia, each match had one city as host, which is the whole setup of World Cup — something Rakesh Haridas was trying to point out.
Saudi Arabia’s top football executive recognizes that fans and sponsors are pulling their support of the 2022 Cup to Qatar, because it is easier for someone to watch Messi perform in Qatar than Paris.
This World Cup is a time for sports lovers, corporations and more. There’s no better time to engage in marketing and advertising campaigns than now.
“Traditional corporate social events like sightseeing and clubbing”: Raj Khandwala, CEO of Mumbai-based sports management and travel company Cutting Edge, spoke of the monotony that has crept into social events in his opinion at a recent summit.
Now that corporations such as F1 and Wimbledon are experienced through the likes of social media and streaming, they want to create experiences for clients or customers. Said Khandwala, “something which is an experience for them.”
Match Hospitality will distribute approximately $20-$25 million in hospitality for this year’s world cup, between “cutting edge” and another authorized agent. Match CEO Khandwala predicted that the number of tickets sold through hospitality will be at a maximum of 450,000 which is due to India failing to qualify for the World Cup.
75 percent of Cutting Edge’s revenue for the World Cup came from businesses. Packages range from the “pinnacle of luxury,” to the “true fan experience.” Each package includes private dining experiences, six-course meals with live chef counters, champagne selections, extended service and prime match views among other things.
Cutting Edge has the lowest price match ticket, at $950, and the hotel stay costs between $500-$800 for a two-night package. With 4,000 Indian fans booked now, they expect that number to rise to 5,500 by when the tournament commences. This kind of tourism is seeing more competition in recent years with many new companies stepping into it.
Dream11 established DreamSetGo in 2019, a company which combines sport and recreational travel. Bharat Army established its own sports tourism arm called Bharat Army Travel & Tours in 2015.
With new models such as Copymatic, travel companies are redoubling their efforts in content marketing. This trend only continues to grow- the landscape is changing, attracting a lot of attention from people in India and all over the world.
Based on projected annual growth rates and the choosing of experiences over material objects as a priority, millennials are the largest demographic group in this country. In addition to this trend, predictions say that adventure and experiential tourism is growing at a 17.4% annual rate between 2017 to 2023.
A study recently conducted by Deloitte indicates that 57% of millennials and an equal number of Gen Z in the country want to travel and see the world. In 2019, India is not at the World Cup, but the presence of Indians will be felt in the stands.