A Russian family has spent an extravagant 1.4 million rubles ($24,000) on a tour of the 2018 FIFA World Cup’s final matches, the Lenta.ru news site reported Tuesday.
The package tour, sold by BSI Group to the family of four, includes accommodation in five-star hotels in St. Petersburg and Moscow. The tour offers airline fare between the two cities and transfers between their hotels and airports.
The minimum price for these World Cup-themed tours start at 60,464 rubles ($1,037) and do not include tickets to the matches. For an additional fee, the tourists can get an English or Spanish-speaking tour guide, tours of the cities and transfers to the stadium.
According to the BSI Group, most foreign demand for the tours comes from Mexico, Panama, Costa Rica, Colombia, Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay.
Earlier this week, Moscow City Hall announced that over 40,000 rooms in the city’s hotels have already been booked for the World Cup period. This accounts for about 60 percent of the total 67,000 hotel rooms available in Russia’s capital.
The main wave of bookings began in September when FIFA officially launched ticket sales for the World Cup matches. Demand is particularly high for hostels and economy hotels in central Moscow.
“There are practically no unreserved cheap mini-hotels and hostels left in the center of the capital during the 2018 World Cup matches,” said Nikolai Gulyaev, head of Moscow’s department of sport and tourism. “Many of these rooms are not just booked, but already paid for.”
U.S. citizens are among the most active hotel bookers, despite the fact that their national team failed to qualify for the tournament. Chinese tourists, whose team also won’t participate in the World Cup, are making reservations in Moscow hotels as well.
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