Bloc booking: Making the most of Eastern promise

TWO countries and eight cities will host Euro 2012.

Irish fans have already decided which country they would prefer. One is easy to get to, the other is not. Poland, host to Groups A and C, is already familiar to the weekend holiday maker, with well-developed air links from both Ryanair and Aer Lingus.

By comparison, Ukraine, host to Groups B and D, is not easily accessible. We don’t have a single direct air route.

The lack of air access is a product of the complex politics of the eastern frontier of the EU. There is no open skies arrangement with Ukraine. Nor will there be any time soon. There is always a political dimension to these big sporting occasions. Ukraine have been pitching to join the EU since Poland were admitted in 2004 and the volatile Tymoshenko-Yushchenko elections of the mid noughties turned the face of the country west to Europe rather than, as was traditional, east toward Moscow.

The distances will be greater, and that is the least of Joxer’s problems as he points the Hiace van in the direction of Donetsk next summer.

It is 1,800 kilometres from the westernmost venue for the championship, Gdansk in Poland, to the easternmost, Donetsk in Ukraine, and a troublesome border to cross.

We could conceivably have to finish our group campaign in Gdansk and have to head for a quarter-final outing five days later in Donetsk. Even within the groups, fans could end up travelling 900 kilometres from Kharkiv to Lviv as they navigate the perilous road system within Ukraine.

When the draw is made, our preference will be Group A or C, which are totally within Poland. We have lots of air lift to Poland and the country is extremely familiar to us — thanks to the presence of what many consider the most pleasant immigrant community that ever settled in this country.

Group D is the most distant, landing us in Kiev to play the home team and in distant Donetsk, a journey already familiar to many Champions League fans thanks to the exploits of Shakhtar in recent years.

The good news is that there are no visa issues for Irish fans and we have the Eurovision Song Contest to thank for it. Eight years ago, when they hosted the Eurovision in Kiev, Ukraine dispensed with the visas that required surrendering your passport, massive paperwork and an invitation from a Ukraine-based travel agency.

Sports specialist tour operators, Abbey Travel and 747 Travel are already on the job of setting up their packages even in advance of the draw, and block booking beds on the chance of us getting specific cities.

Going with a specialist operator guarantees your flights (essential if we end up in Ukraine), your match ticket, hotel, and all-important transfers through the airport. It also gives people the option of staying on should we qualify for the quarter-finals and have to move location. The downside is that the tour operators will merrily mark up the cost of their package.

There are huge variations in hotel prices already and these prices will spike outrageously after the draw is made. For the independent traveller, who has lots of direct options in Poland, the best transfer options to the Ukraine are through Frankfurt, but do not forget Lufthansa’s other hub in Munich, and the great services through Istanbul with Turkish Airlines and through Budapest with Malév.

Flights to Poland are currently available for €120 return but Ryanair could cancel an existing flight and to resell the seats at more lucrative rates.

Hotel prices, flights and drink prices spike when a big event comes to town. Euro 2012 will be no different despite the assurances from the Polish and Ukrainian tourist boards at their respective press conferences at the world travel market in London last week. This time there is an added complication facing fans.

It is the number of beds that decides the price we pay for a hotel room, more important than any other factor. For example it is the reason that Kilkenny is one of the most expensive places to stay and Waterford one of the cheapest.

While Warsaw and Kiev are reasonably well provided with bed stock, more than 20,000 in each case, some of the other host cities are very short of hotel beds. The host cities have a total of 50,000 hotel beds, which is well short of the 400,000 fans expected to travel. Ukraine is more than seven times the size of Ireland but its total bed stock is a little over a third of that of ours. In Kharkiv and Donetsk the bed stock is around 2,000, similar to Castlebar and Westport together, completely inadequate for a major sporting event.

When this happened in the past, the solution was a day trip for the fans.

The flights are a little too far to do this to Donetsk, Lviv and Kharkiv and the light leg would have to be paid for, making them exorbitant. Poland is another story. Warsaw is a two-hour flight, Kiev more than three hours.

Prettiest venue is Lviv, a picture postcard mini-Krakow about three hours from the real Krakow. The city centre has been declared a UNESCO world heritage site.

Most of the other cities are industrial centres — stadiums, not cities, are the criteria for venue selection so, alas, Krakow does not make it. Prices on the ground will also be better in Poland. A pint will cost €2.50 throughout Poland, much more in Ukraine, with the inconvenience of having to convert euro to hryvnya.

* Eoghan Corry is editor of Travel Extra. His latest book Deadlock, about the series of matches been Dublin and Meath in 1991, has been shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the year awards.