Analysts at the travel service OneTwoTrip conducted a study of hotel availability in the cities hosting the World Cup and concluded that the selection of bookable options for the match dates has expanded significantly. In fact, now In none of the cities except Saransk is there a problem finding a place to live.
We first conducted this study in January 2018. It compared the number of hotels available for online booking on match days with their availability during off-peak periods. For example, in Saransk and Volgograd, there were no available hotels at the beginning of the year, while in Yekaterinburg, Samara, Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan, and Kaliningrad, the share was less than 151 TP3T (see table). Today, we see a fundamentally different situation. In most cities, hotel availability has increased significantly. For example, in Yekaterinburg, this figure increased from 2.51 TP3T to 34.61 TP3T (almost 14 times), in Samara, from 8.71 TP3T to 35.61 TP3T (4 times), and so on.
Remarkably, the number of hotels available for online booking has increased even in Moscow, the city that will be the primary focus of fans. While at the beginning of the year, an average of 221,000 hotels in the capital offered their services to fans during the off-peak period, today 481,000 hotels in Moscow are reporting availability.
"Online booking systems are now offering offers not only from small hotels, but also from large chain hotels, which, with rare exceptions, had not previously used this sales channel. The change in their position may be due to the cancellation of group bookings, demand that fell short of initial expectations, and inflated prices during the initial phase, which discouraged fans. A week before the championship, many hotels are selling rooms at quite reasonable prices, and we cannot rule out the possibility that guests who booked refundable rates may cancel their reservations in favor of more affordable options that have now become available. Additionally, fans who purchase match tickets during the sales phase that began yesterday will be able to take advantage of the new offers," notes the expert. Maxim Karaush, head of the hotel department of the OneTwoTrip service.
Source: trn-news.ru