World Cup draw sparks booking frenzy

The much anticipated World Cup draw took place on Friday and in its wake it left travel agents frantically trying to book flights and accommodation to South Africa for the thousands of England fans looking to travel. The World Cup is set to take place in June 2010 and almost one million tickets went on sale on Saturday and Sunday sparking a booking frenzy. Almost 60,000 tickets were sold in the first two hours after going on sale and the high demand has pleased Fifa officials.

There are many good deals to be had for those who have the time to hunt around but Fifa has already warned that they expect far fewer than the allocated 308,000 corporate hospitality seats to be sold due to the economic downturn. The available expenditure of businesses around the world has been slashed and many cannot afford to splash out on the World Cup. This is good news for the rest of the world as any unsold tickets will be sold to the general public early in 2010.

Anyone looking for a good deal should move fast as Tui Travel expect to sell its 10,000 packages with a few days with half of them going out to corporate hospitality. Thomas Cook and Thomas Cook Sport have already sold out their available packages for England matches and the tickets that they had for the World Cup final that is due to take place on July the 11th. The biggest problem for tour operators and travel agents is that each of the 32 nations partaking in the games will play their first three matches in different locations meaning tour operators are left to organise travel as well as accommodation and tickets.