World Cup accommodation crisis

The Caribbean will not be able to cope with the demand generated by up to 100,000 people who are planning to travel to watch the World Cup, according to Chris Dehring, the tournament's director.

"We don't expect to satisfy the entire demand," Dehring admitted. "You can't. It is a tremendous amount of demand for the World Cup. Those who want to attend must appreciate that it is really going to be a challenge.

"They need to get out there and book their flights and hotel accommodations very early. They should have done so already, [but] it's not too late."

That is rather at odds with comments made by Dehring to The Nation 24 hours earlier when he said that people applying for tickets in the first phase would find out their allocations "by August 31", ensuring that any flight and accommodation bookings made before then would be a gamble.

Dehring explained that a number of initiatives were being investigated to try to alleviate the situation, including accommodation offshore on cruise ships.

"The reason there is a fear that there is not enough accommodation is because the demand for the World Cup in the Caribbean is so exceptionally high," Dehring continued. "The Caribbean is already a destination of choice around the world. It is one of the world's great tourist destinations. Putting the World Cup in the Caribbean only makes it a destination of unbridled desire."