The Associated Press reports that with 150 days to go before the Turin 2006 Opening Ceremony, although half the ticket quota for the Games have been sold, ticket sales to Italians are lagging.
Giorgio Lauretta, head of ticket sales for the Games, said he was happy with demand for tickets from abroad and that some Olympic committees had run out of tickets and requested more. He said sales had been particularly brisk in Britain, the Netherlands, France, Germany, the United States and Canada with recent surges in demand in Russia, the Czech Republic and Norway.
Of the 460,000 tickets sold so far only 100,000 have gone directly to the public, the rest being taken by sponsors, corporations, sports federations, broadcasters, national Olympic committees and ticketing agencies.
In Italy 120,000 tickets have been sold with 70,000 tickets being purchased by telephone, on the Internet or through selected agencies and banks.
As for the lack of ticket sales to Italians Lauretta said, “I would have liked to have sold more but our advertising so far has been quite weak”. He also blamed the lack of interest on a shortage of current Italian winter sports champions and Italians’ buying habits. He said, “Italians have always bought tickets for sports events right at the last minute”.
But he expected that, as with previous Olympics, interest would be generated with the Olympic torch relay, which starts Dec. 8.
In order to boost sales ticket-accommodation packages that include hotel or apartment rooms will be available in October.
Tickets cost between 20 and 370 euros for a single event and between 250 and 850 euros for the Opening Ceremony.
Lauretta said ticket prices are about 25 per cent lower than those for the 2002 Salt Lake City Games.
Figure skating, speed skating, ice hockey and Alpine skiing are the more popular events.
Organizers are trying to guard against ticket scalpers by limiting the number of tickets sold to individual buyers to 12 (six for the most popular events) and by holding back the distribution of tickets until January, giving scalpers less time to trade, reports the Associated Press.
