Rugby World Cup ticket sales to agents take off

Ticket sales to travel agents for next year's Rugby World Cup have already outstripped the 2003 event, 16 months before the opening match.

David White, chief executive of Rugby Travel and Hospitality (RTH), which sells tickets directly to official travel agents and hospitality package providers, said it had sold 85,000 tickets since the start of February.

The figure excludes the ballot system under which rugby fans can apply to buy team or pool packs, for which no figures have been made available.

It is 3000 tickets more than were sold to agents for the entire event in Australia in 2003 and is 15 per cent ahead of where the 2007 event in France stood at the same point before the competition began.

In previous events, visitors who bought through travel agents attended on average three matches, Mr White said. By the time the Rugby World Cup starts next September, RTH expects to have sold 120,000 tickets through the travel programme.

It is also aiming to sell 75,000 hospitality packages, a 50 per cent increase on the 2003 event, with the centrepiece a fine-dining tent on Eden Park's number two field.

Only 10 per cent of the tickets have been bought by Europe-based travel agents, although Mr White said this week that the figure was a "pleasant surprise" given recent economic turmoil, with strong interest from European fans for "top-end hospitality packages".

About 85 per cent of tickets were sold to agents in New Zealand and Australia, although this included sales to cruise liner companies with a capacity of 5500 beds, with some of the tickets likely to be sold to guests from further afield.

"Sales to all regions have been up with our expectations and to some places they are ahead of expectations."

Mr White conceded that advanced bookings were likely to be up on the European event, given New Zealand's remoteness from most main rugby-playing nations. "I guess we're taking a positive spin, but it is looking really very positive and we would be concerned if it wasn't that way."

Martin Snedden, chief executive of Rugby World Cup 2011, would not say whether an estimate of up to 85,000 international visitors was too conservative.

- © Fairfax NZ News