Travel agents were reported on Friday to be claiming that high costs and ticket chaos were stopping thousands of rugby fans going to Australia for next month’s Rugby World Cup.
The 12 licensed travel agents in Britain estimate that business is down 20% while figures from South Africa are 50% down, the Times reported on Friday.
And The Guardian newspaper said supporters travelling to Australia have yet to receive their tickets despite assurances from the organisers they would be printed well in advance of the October 10 kick-off.
The Times estimates that a maximum of 14 000 of the 23 000 ticket packages made available to overseas operators have or will be sold.
This figure does not include the thousands of fans who are likely to make their own arrangements.
Fans were reported to have objected to the high prices for hotel rooms in Sydney — the venue for the semifinals and final.
John Hall, managing director of Gulliver’s Sports Travel, which has arranged for 3 000 fans to see the World Cup, said that, whereas supporters in Australia had received their tickets, the ones earmarked for those from abroad had still not been distributed.
”We were promised the tickets last month but we still have to receive them. What we have been told is that they will be released in Sydney this week and we will courier them to Britain,” he told The Guardian.
”But we will only be receiving tickets for the pool matches. We have no idea when we will be receiving the ones for the knock-out stages and what it means is that supporters will be flying out without having all the tickets they have paid for.
”We have assured them that we will get the tickets to them. That is easily done for those who are travelling in tour groups but for those who are doing their own thing when they land, such as hiring camper vans and driving around Australia, it creates logistical problems.
”There are already reports of identical tickets being sold in Australia and there is not much time to put things right.”
A company called Rugby Logistics, run jointly by the tournament’s official airlines, British Airways and Qantas, is responsible for the distribution. Hall said that attempts to pin them down had proved fruitless.
A spokesperson for New Zealand Overseas Travel Agents told the paper the decision to sell tickets over the internet had had a devastating effect on the number of packages its members had been able to sell.
Legal action for breach of contract was being contemplated against Rugby Logistics, the International Rugby Board and the tournament’s commercial agents IMG. — Sapa-AFP