Tickets for Rio Olympics met with disappointing sales

Global Business

Tickets for Rio Olympics met with disappointing sales2

The first two ticket offices for the Rio 2016 Olympic and Paralympic games opened Monday. In the coming weeks other box offices will start operating in the city.

CCTV America’s Lucrecia Franco reported initial sales from Rio.

Follow Lucrecia Franco on Twitter @@LucreciaFranco

The offices opened Monday in two Rio shopping malls with almost no queues and a slow sales process.

“The process was slow, because this is the first time, I guess. I arrived here at ten a.m., and after 40 minutes they had to delete everything and start all over again, but everyone was very nice,” Ignacio Robles, a ticket buyer said.

According to the Rio 2016 organizers, 70 percent of the 6 million available tickets for the Olympics have been sold so far and only 24 percent of the 2.5 million Paralympic tickets.

Ticketing Director, Donovan Ferreti, said that this is less than what was sold at this time in the 2012 London games, but added that it is all about culture.

“The difference is how Brazilians and Europeans behave. Here we have this habit of leaving everything for the last minute, but having sold 70 percent is a good mark,” Ferreti said.

Concerns about the Zika virus, Brazil’s political and economic chaos may be contributing to sluggish ticket sales, but ticket prices shouldn’t be a factor.

More than 30 box offices like this one will open in Rio.