Still counting down to the World Cup which is fast approaching, Brazil is actively setting all stages in place, in terms of hotel reservations and other neccessities and according to reports the prices for accomodations has flown high.

Rio de janeiro for instance has football fans scrambling for accomodations and topping the ranks of shelter are love motels and slums due to high cost of hotel accomodation.

“It was ridiculous,” said Raphael Ruland, a Germany fan who also attended the last two World Cups.
Priced out of a traditional hotel, he eventually found a room after months of haggling on apartment rental site Airbnb.

“Some hosts were charging four or five times their normal rate. There was a time when I thought it wouldn’t be worth going, just because of how much accommodations cost.”

Of the 600,000 foreign tourists expected for the World Cup, over two thirds will go to Rio, according to the city’s tourism agency, where just 21,639 conventional hotel rooms, and sky-high prices, await them.

Fans that haven’t yet booked face prices upwards of $700 for the few rooms remaining. There are, however, some alternatives.
Those include Rio’s many love motels, traditional Brazilian hideaways for couples seeking privacy from the prying eyes of parents or spouses. They usually charge for stays of 4 or 6 hours but some are now offering daily rates for the World Cup.

Some, such as the Midway and the Shalimar have retrofitted their rooms to attract travellers, switching out the neon-trimmed circular beds for more conventional, family-friendly furnishings.
Others have not, such as the Malaga.

Located far from the beach in a run-down area west of the city centre and entered through a garage door, it can be booked for $200 a night on the weekend of the Cup final.

Brazil’s hotel industry has suffered from low investment in recent years as developers opted for more lucrative office and residential projects.

A study by FOHB released last week showed only 10 percent of the group’s hotel rooms were still available in Rio on game days or the day before, compared with 43 per cent in Curitiba, another host city, and a whopping 64 per cent in Sao Paulo.

© Sport Cracker Media