JEDDAH, 9 June 2006 — Coffee shops around Jeddah are buying plasma television sets and subscribing to local satellite sports channels to attract as many soccer fans as possible for the up and coming exciting international World Cup tournament.
Subscription to the satellite channel ART, the channel that has the official World Cup broadcasting rights in the Middle East, has also increased. According to market experts, takings usually triple in coffee shops that show World Cup games.
In preparation of the event, Second Cup cafe on Tahlia Street has purchased a number of large plasma television sets for their open-air section. “We are also planning to install a brand new massive screen for indoors,” a worker at the cafe told Arab News.
He also noted that there would be no increase in prices and that the cafe was expecting a full house every day during the World Cup period.
Nabeel Al Hudairi, manager of Rendezvous cafe in Tahlia Street, said they already have a sufficient number of 21-inch and 50-inch television sets around the shop and were not planning to buy any more televisions. “We usually show soccer leagues around the year, so we’re more than ready for the World Cup,” he added. He noted that if there was a larger than usual demand from customers then the cafe would hire a few more workers for the season to help.
In preparation, the cafe has installed a miniature soccer goalpost at the entrance of the shop to tell customer that they are showing the World Cup. He said that they would not increase the prices for the occasion and would not implement a minimum charge scheme.
Al-Hudairi added that he expects 80 percent of customers who show up for the World Cup to be regular clients and familiar with prices.
“We don’t want to take advantage of our clients by increasing prices,” he said.
Other cafes on the other hand don’t seem to be at all fussed. The management at the French cafe was not available for comment. According to a worker the cafe has not even bothered to subscribe to ART yet.
He said that he had told the manager on a number of times to subscribe and even buy more television sets for the occasion but nothing happened so far.
