A general view of the skyline from the Doha Corniche on March 31, 2022.
Nick Potts – Pa Images | Getty Images
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The Dubai-based rideshare app Careem is offering inter-country taxi journeys for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, as millions of soccer fans from around the world descend on the tiny Gulf country for the Middle East’s first-ever go at hosting the massive tournament.
The offer doesn’t span all of the countries around Qatar but will be accessible to those traveling from two parts of neighboring Saudi Arabia: the city of Dammam, which is 250 miles (402 kilometers) away from the capital Doha and takes roughly 4.5 hours to get there, and Al Ahsa City, roughly 160 miles away from Doha with a journey time of 3 hours.
The fare? A fixed $266 each way (1000 Saudi riyals), or $532 for the round-trip, with a maximum of three passengers per taxi.
But will people opt for a multi-hour road trip rather than just taking a quick flight? Bassel Al Nahlaoui, Careem’s managing director for mobility, thinks so.
“This trip is really convenient. It’s around 3.5 hours and if you compare that to a flight, it matches the time it takes you to go to the airport and take the flight, land there, etc — except you’re in a car, you’re paying a fraction of the price, and if you split that with a couple of friends it becomes even cheaper,” Al Nahlaoui told CNBC.
Potential challenges
Still, travelers can only book the ride to Doha one day in advance, which could make planning ahead difficult.
And crossing the Saudi-Qatar border requires taking a shuttle bus, going through border control and meeting a new driver on the other side. But Careem says this part of the journey has also been fully accounted for.
The Careem ride-hailing app on a phone outside the Mall of the Emirates in Dubai, United Arab Emirate.
Christopher Pike | Bloomberg | Getty Images
“What happens is you open your app, you book a car from one of these two cities, a captain [driver] picks you up and drives you to the border,” Al Nahlaoui said. “At the border, we have Careem staff that will help you cross the border, find the captain that’s waiting for you on the Qatari side, and then that’s the last leg of the trip.”
“And our customer care is monitoring the trip throughout the journey itself,” he added, noting that Careem’s customer support staff numbers have been boosted.
To this end, contingencies have also been put in place if riders or drivers face problems or unruly behavior, Al…
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