The Brazilian government investigates a FIFA tour operator offering hotel rooms for June 2014 for prices that are 40 percent higher than what the hotels usually charge.
The appeal was filed at a consumer advocacy body of the Ministry of Justice against the company Swiss Match, FIFA's official carrier, and against the very own world football governing body, officials of the Ministry of Tourism of Brazil (Embratur) reported.
For his part, the president of the state organization for development and tourism, Flávio Dino, stated that "the agency identified a difference of up to 40 percent of the price negotiated directly with hotels and what Match is asking from the football fans who buy the World Cup packages that offer access to the matches along with accommodation."
Also, the official added, "We believe that Match's fees are abusive as well. Therefore we request to open an investigation."
"We hope to review the rates because the prices of hotels in Brazil, which were already considered high, went even higher and that can scare the tourists off," he said.
"We are concerned with the image of the country indicating that tourism in Brazil is expensive. We don’t want a Russian fan for instance to tell his neighbor and his family that he paid dearly for the intermediary," Dino said.
Finally, in the course of these negotiations - that will take time to determine what the prices to be paid by fans around the world should be next June - the Embratur analyzed that "the average daily expenditure in hotels of four and five stars in Rio for the date of the FIFA World Cup comes to $461, while in Johannesburg it was $300 in 2010 and in Munich (Germany) it was $191 in 2006.
It is noticeable that before the end of the first phase of ticket sales, which exceeded expectations, the most wanted matches were the opening match, which will be played on June 12 in St. Paul, with Brazil's national team, and the final match in July 13, to be played in the Maracana. As for the venues, the most favorite one was Sao Paulo, followed by Rio de Janeiro and Curitiba.