DOHA —
Boxloads of wooden camels, plates with pictures of
Qatar’s skyscrapers, gold
necklaces, football hats, and scarves arrive every day in Doha’s Souq Waqif
market, where traders eagerly await World Cup fans.
اضافة اعلان
The narrow alleys
of the century-old market will be a magnet for the one million football
followers expected at the tournament, which kicks off on November 20.
“There will be huge
crowds, we have never experienced anything like this,” said Abdul Rahman
Mohammed Al-Nama, head of the souq stables that organizes camel and pony rides.
“Inshallah (God willing), we are ready.”
Crowds are already
growing as a World Cup buzz mounts.
Fan zone attractions
and temporary stores are being set up around Nama’s camel enclosure and the
hundreds of small stores selling incense, spices, carpets, gold, and even
falcons and other birds and animals. Press reports said stores will be allowed
to open 24 hours a day during the
World Cup.
When Souq Waqif
opened in the early 20th century, traders stood at the entrance shouting at
passers-by to buy their goods. Its name means the “Standing Market”.
Devastated by a
major fire in 2003, most of it has been rebuilt with arched pedestrian alleys,
as part of a project to regenerate central Doha.
Billions spent
Foreign fans “will have a lot of fun”, said Yasmine Ghanem, a 28-year-old
member of Qatar’s national women’s golf team, who was sat in a Souq Waqif cafe
drinking coffee and eating pancakes.
“It will be a great
mixture of Arab culture and football,” she added.
Every evening,
terraces are now filled with people drinking coffee and puffing on shisha
tobacco pipes — it is a zone with no alcohol.
But traders, who
have long been preparing for the World Cup, are expecting more. Nama cites the
camels kept in an enclosure on a square as one attraction.
“I think that many
tourists will want to see the camels and take pictures with them, because they
are not found in Europe and
East Asia,” he said.
Souvenir stores
have packed their shelves. At his small store selling gold necklaces, Saleh
Mohammed is looking for a motorbike rider who can deliver to hotels.
Dominated by the
spiraling minaret of the Sheikh Abdullah bin Zaid Al-Mahmoud Islamic Center,
the Al-Rawnaq company has for decades concentrated on textiles, cheap clothes,
and toys.
Now the aisles are
filled with scarves, flags, and hats emblazoned with the names of the 32
competing nations — especially hosts Qatar.
In one corner, one
worker makes flags, some up to 10m long.
Tens of billions of
dollars have been spent on a new metro and infrastructure that has given the
city a dramatic makeover.
New infrastructure
Outside Doha, many new resorts have been built.
Qatar wants to use
the World Cup to bolster a campaign to increase visitor numbers from 1.5
million a year to six million by 2030.
Qatar Airways chief
executive Akbar Al-Baker said his company is investing “hundreds of millions of
dollars” on new infrastructure and promoting tourism.
“Qatar can
certainly use this opportunity to position itself as a family-friendly
destination,” said Kamilla Swart-Arries, associate professor in sport and
tourism at Hamad bin Khalifa University.
“The World Cup will
just amplify and maximize the changing perception that people may currently
have about Doha and Qatar.”
At the World Cup
countdown clock on seafront Corniche road, Bangladeshis, Indians, Nepalis,
Pakistanis, Kenyans, and Ugandans from Qatar’s huge migrant community flock to
take selfies next to the modernist structure.
“I am a fan of
Lionel Messi and I have a ticket to see Argentina play Saudi Arabia,” said
Anwar Sadath, 56, an Indian accountant.
“It will be a memorable event.”
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