(MENAFN- The Peninsula) The Peninsula Online
Doha, Qatar: Secretary General at Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy for the Qatar 2022 FIFA World Cup Hassan Al Thawadi discussed the changes witnessed by the State of Qatar that followed the 2022 tournament.
During his interview with Thmanya podcast's Suqrat (Socrates) programming, Al Thawadi revealed that the Qatar 2022 World Cup helped and continues to help foster a culture of reliance on public transport which had been gaining momentum prior to the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. It has picked up steam after the tournament, said the Secretary General.
Al Thawadi said that more people in areas such as Al Wakrah were using Qatar's metro system to beat traffic, and that this culture of public transport reliance will only“keep growing.”
It also helped Qatar achieve environmental gains with its state of the art public transport system helping in significantly reducing carbon emissions.
Al Thawadi revealed that a considerable number of the country's 3000-strong bus fleet would be allocated for school transportation, particularly out of the fleet's 700 electric buses.
The country's touristic sector witnessed rejuvenation after the tournament, as per Al Thawadi. Qatar has become a holiday destination for many people across the globe, with figures released by the Planning and Statistics Authority (PSA) in Qatar noting a growth in the arrival of visitors, with over 285,000 arriving in May 2023, showing a surge of 72 percent on an annual basis.
The World Cup period also provided the country with the opportunity of upgrading its Labour Law standards and look into how it would be possible to improve on them further for implementation following the tournament's conclusion.
Al Thawadi also asserted that Lusail was not merely built for the occasion of the 2022 World Cup, but rather as an expansion plan in alignment with the Qatar National Vision 2030 objectives, heavily refuting the assumption that the city was an example of a 'white elephant' project.
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