Peter Delmar – Greed killing our World Cup prospects

Following on from my Ashanti Lodge post (and their manager’s “charmless reply“), this from Peter Delmar in The Times yesterday:

You can stay at the two-star B&B for under R600 a night per room, including breakfast, which is about as much as it’s worth. But, the proprietor told me, she was doubling the price for the World Cup.

“Oh,” was all I managed to say in response. I wanted to ask: “Why?”

Why double the price just because of the World Cup? Did she have any bookings for the soccer? Not yet.

Just about everyone else is up to the same jiggery-pokery: jostling with their snout in the trough to milk fans, who are all supposedly as rich as Croesus, for six weeks or so. And now their chickens are coming home to roost. We’ve realised with a nasty shock that even the Germans, the richest soccer fans in the world, can’t afford us.

The greed-mongers are not only shooting themselves in the foot, they’re shooting the poorest of the poor as well.

None of us particularly likes our airline industry and it hardly came as a surprise to learn it was being investigated for collusion on pricing during the World Cup. The only real surprise was that it took our somnambulant competition authorities so long to twig to what was going on.

I’ve been to a few world cups in my time. Admittedly, none of them were soccer-related, but at all of them the profiteering was kept within limits. Or wasn’t even noticeable. But not South Africa 2010, it seems.

It’s not too late to tell the world: “Sorry, we got a bit carried away there for a moment and thought you okes were much richer than you really are.

Good points, good sense.

Are you reading, Sue?

7 thoughts on “Peter Delmar – Greed killing our World Cup prospects

  1. I sympathise totally with your opinion with regard to World Cup travel rip offs. Unfortunately it is a global problem related to anything travel related. Here in the UK there is always a price hike for big Champions League match flights. I remember people complaining that they were having to pay £2000 to fly from Liverpool to Athens for the Final on the most basic of airlines. It is a similar principle to school holiday prices being far more than the surrounding weeks for vacations. Its unlikely that you will see any reductions. But you only rip somebody off once and if you do they never come back.

  2. Never too late to drop prices!! Although Sue’s not going to be happy – she’s decorating, remember! 😀 Nice, shiny, spotless (empty) rooms… perfick!

  3. As I’ve said before… I am not wasting what is left of my divorce settlement on your lot!

    I need to take my Lexus LS460 into the garage now, on the way to the hairdressers this morning the pedal got stuck and I mowed down two lollipop ladies… let me tell you, blood does not look gold on gold paintwork!

  4. Old Heav’ has taken a shine, eh? Shall I call the press and score myself an earner? You could get lessons from that French model Terry was testing – I think she’s getting £250k from her victim impact statement… 😀

  5. People always assume that because the Rand is generally weaker than most other currencies they can charge more.

    When I was home in March last year, the only thing that I found relatively cheap was eating out and booze. Hotels were generally expensive and car hire was ridiculous (although this is understandable because of the cost of insurance.)

    And this is exactly what happened in Greece before the Euro was introduced. It was cheap, hordes of tourists arrived, the Greeks got greedy, put up their prices and lost the tourists to places like Turkey and Croatia.

    Good luck Sue and your fellow greedy b@stards!
    .-= DelBoy´s last blog ..Homebrew II – Bottling =-.

  6. My wife and I travelled 10 thousands kilometers around South Africa and Botswana 4 years ago. We stayed with friends and B+B,s In B+B,s we paid between 250 to 375 Rand for the both of us. ( no breakfast with the 250) I had to haggle to get the 250 Rand. Prices there now are stupid, I asked for a place in Ballito, north of Durban and they wanted 1600 Rand a nite !!!!! and that was for Oct or Nov this year. We have friends around South Africa, so will make a point of not getting riped off.
    I hope people will boycott the soccer games around that country. and screw them !!!!

    Calgary, Alberta

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