Floating hotels project for 2022 Qatar Football World Cup

Qatar plans to establish 16 floating hotels to host fans that will arrive for the 2022 Football World Cup.

FIFA Football World Cup will be hosted in Qatar in November and December 2022. It will be the first time that the World Cup will be held in the Middle East.

According to FIFA requirements, at least 60,000 hotel rooms should be available for fans during the event. A report issued last year shows that less than half of the required rooms are currently available in Qatar, thus, new facilities must be established.

To accomplish this target, 4-story structures, built identical, will be the first floating hotels ever constructed worldwide. The facilities that will be 72-meter long and 16-meter wide will each have 101 rooms for guests, a bar and a restaurant.

The facilities will be very close to the Lusail International Stadium where the first and last game of the World Cup will take place.

The buildings will be assembled in a dockyard and will be transported via a vessel to a location off an island in Qatar. The project will be handled by Admares, a company that specializes in alternative real estate with state-of-the-art construction methods, which has signed a memorandum of understanding with Qetaifan Projects, the developer of the endeavor. “This is the first time ever that pure floating real estate has been used as a temporary solution for accommodation needs at this scale,” Mikael Hedberg, chief executive officer of Admares, stated.

The room prices of the 4-star hotels during the World Cup have not been derived yet. In general, accommodation rates will significantly increase during the event. In the last World Cup, in Russia, 2018, hotel room prices were capped at $8,355 a night. Currently those rates for that period range from $1,500-$3,000 in Qatar.

What is really interesting is that the hotel project can be moved to other regions after the World Cup ends. Developers plan to carry the facilities to many European and South American cities. A significant factor that enables this endeavor is that the hotels do not require deep submersion into water. “After the World Cup, the hotels can be placed at any coastal location where the water is at least 4 meters deep,” Hedberg, added.

Sources: Globalconstructionreview, Pointsguy, Yahoo