As North Texas prepares to host FIFA World Cup events, transportation companies across Dallas say demand for rides, rentals and charter services is already climbing.
Premier Transportation, a Dallas-based chauffeur and luxury transportation company, said many of its larger vehicles are nearly booked.
“We’re walking through our motor coaches, these sit up to 56 passengers,” said Christina Tran of Premier Transportation.
The company recently purchased a new bus and plans to add another vehicle to its fleet ahead of the tournament.
“If you can see behind me all of these are booked out already, we are sold out on motor coaches, our mini busses we’re just about sold out on the sprinters,” Tran said. “Now we’re getting the inquiries on the sedans and SUVs and those have been booking up, so we’re almost at capacity.”
Ride-hailing company Alto also said it is preparing for a sharp increase in customers during the World Cup.
“We are so excited that the FIFA World Cup is just around the corner!” said Will Coleman, Alto’s co-founder and CEO.
Alto, which owns its own electric vehicles and employs its drivers directly, said it is hiring drivers and adding vehicles to prepare for the expected crowds.
“There’s a lot of preparations underway, we’re expecting massive demand. We’re doing everything we can from hiring drivers, bringing on new cars,” Coleman said. “We’re really digesting all the information we can to prepare to know how many cars we should have on the road at what times to best serve customers going to the games.”
Coleman encouraged customers to reserve rides in advance for matches and related events.
“We see this as 9 Taylor Swift concerts all in one month,” he said.
Car-sharing platform Turo also expects increased demand in North Texas during the tournament.
Scott Connery, a Turo host who manages a fleet of 40 vehicles, said he has been expanding his inventory ahead of the World Cup.
“I’ve been adding more cars to the fleet,” Connery said.
Turo officials said the company is encouraging more people in the Dallas-Fort Worth area to list their vehicles during the event. The company is offering $100 to new hosts who complete their first trip with a new listing.
“Last year, without the World Cup, earnings per vehicle was close to $2,000,” said Tim Rossanis, head of Turo USA. “And we’re seeing a really significant ramp up in demand obviously, at the moment, given the World Cup is coming very soon, so we would expect host earnings to be higher than that.”
Transportation companies said they expect the influx of visitors to provide a significant economic boost for the region.
“I’m going to have jobs for all of my chauffeurs, I’m going to make sure all the vehicles are booked out, so at this point, the revenue is going to be wonderful, I have no complaints on that, haha,” Tran said.