The World Cup - A South African Winner! by Paul Paley

As the last ball was kicked in Johannesburg on the 11th July 2010, I’m sure South Africans across the world were proud to call themselves SAFAS. I stayed in the country from the first World Cup game to the second semi final game and then flew to London. A flight, which I booked from Cape Town to London 6 days before flying and using miles! Now lets take you all back to before the World Cup, some hotels and airlines decided to capitalise on football fans intending to visit the country, a time to “cash in” surely. Well in most cases it back-fired. It also seemed an ideal time to rent out your property for a fortune, while enjoying Europe effectively for free, that didn’t happen either.

So if you were, lets say an English supporter, looking at booking a few months before the world cup, you would have found most direct flights were double their normal rates and those that retained reasonable prices, were full. High flight prices combined with expensive hotels, it was too much for their pockets. So what did fans do? Well the next best thing, buy loads of beer, a new 42” HD TV and invited friends to theirs, saved thousands of pounds. In fact, Comet stores in the UK saw an increase in sales of 76% on TVs up to the World Cup, reported footballeconomy.com.

Hotels that raised their rates however, suffered and many of them were left reducing prices just before the games began only to find it was too late. This was obviously a bad idea and Match, part of FIFA, did not help. They apparently provisionally booked many hotels out and then due to lower than expected hospitality bookings, cancelled them at the last minute.

At the end of the day decisions are made on advice and opportunities, it is unfortunate that many hotels have suffered, perhaps their game plans were not quite right. But I think we can all be prepared for an influx of visitors over the coming years as there has been so much positivity. I watched the final in a bar in London and although the result wasn’t to everyone’s liking, it seemed the World Cups host country, will come out the true winner in the end.

By Paul Paley
Found Travel Portfolio