You can take a 500-mile round-trip taxi from Saudi Arabia to the Qatar World Cup for $532

The Dubai-based rideshare app Careem is offering inter-country taxi journeys for the 2022 World Cup successful Qatar, arsenic millions of shot fans from astir the satellite descend connected the tiny Gulf state for the Middle East's first-ever spell astatine hosting the monolithic tournament. 

The connection doesn't span each of the countries astir Qatar but volition beryllium accessible to those traveling from 2 parts of neighboring Saudi Arabia: the metropolis of Dammam, which is 250 miles (402 kilometers) distant from the superior Doha and takes astir 4.5 hours to get there, and Al Ahsa City, astir 160 miles distant from Doha with a travel clip of 3 hours.

The fare? A fixed $266 each mode (1000 Saudi riyals), oregon $532 for the round-trip, with a maximum of 3 passengers per taxi.

But volition radical opt for a multi-hour roadworthy travel alternatively than conscionable taking a speedy flight? Bassel Al Nahlaoui, Careem's managing manager for mobility, thinks so. 

"This travel is truly convenient. It's astir 3.5 hours and if you comparison that to a flight, it matches the clip it takes you to spell to the airdrome and instrumentality the flight, onshore there, etc — but you're successful a car, you're paying a fraction of the price, and if you divided that with a mates of friends it becomes adjacent cheaper," Al Nahlaoui told CNBC.

Still, travelers tin lone publication the thrust to Doha 1 time successful advance, which could marque readying up difficult. 

And crossing the Saudi-Qatar borderline requires taking a shuttle bus, going done borderline power and gathering a caller operator connected the different side. But Careem says this portion of the travel has besides been afloat accounted for.

"What happens is you unfastened your app, you publication a car from 1 of these 2 cities, a skipper [driver] picks you up and drives you to the border," Al Nahlaoui said. "At the border, we person Careem unit that volition assistance you transverse the border, find the skipper that's waiting for you connected the Qatari side, and past that's the past limb of the trip." 

"And our lawsuit attraction is monitoring the travel passim the travel itself," helium added, noting that Careem's lawsuit enactment unit numbers person been boosted.  

To this end, contingencies person besides been enactment successful spot if riders oregon drivers look problems oregon unruly behavior, Al Nahlaoui said. 

"Our attraction squad supports each verticals … we are capable to summation and alteration our enactment measurement astir by day, that's however flexible we are and however rapidly we are capable to set to enactment incoming calls," helium said. "In presumption of crisis, we person a circumstantial enactment enactment you tin entree done the app itself."

In lawsuit the drivers themselves look occupation from passengers, "our captains person the aforesaid entree to attraction that our customers have," Al Nahlaoui said. "We person aggregate channels for them to get contiguous entree oregon antithetic types of enactment depending connected the situation, truthful that has ever been successful spot for skipper support."

The rideshare app, which has grown into a "super-app" implicit the past fewer years to connection galore services successful summation to rides and was acquired by Uber successful 2019, expects lawsuit request to balloon during the World Cup, which runs from Nov. 20 to Dec. 18. 

But during ample events successful the region's cities similar planetary conferences oregon the Dubai Expo 2020, Careem cars were often hard to find, and hold times multiplied, leaving galore customers frustrated.

Al Nahlaoui says helium hopes this won't beryllium the lawsuit this time, and that the institution has amply prepared for the monolithic influx of people. 

Careem, which operates successful 80 cities, has "steadily expanded its fleet size by 1,000 further cars implicit respective months," to hole for the World Cup, the institution said successful a connection earlier this month.

The institution expects the full fig of Careem vehicles successful Qatar — which span taxis, vans, luxury cars and motorbikes — to turn by much than 50% successful clip for the tournament.

Careem's fleets successful adjacent cities similar Dubai, the commercialized superior of the United Arab Emirates, person been increasing successful tandem, Al Nahlaoui said. 

The region's apical metropolis for leisure tourism is expected to spot a monolithic surge successful visitors alongside Doha, arsenic galore opt to enactment successful Dubai but alert to Qatar for idiosyncratic matches.

This is owed astatine slightest successful portion to the conflict that Qatar, with a colonisation of astir 3 million, has faced successful gathering up edifice capableness for its 1.2 cardinal anticipated visitors during the tourney period. Qatar Airways is adjacent offering "match day shuttles" that volition let spectators to alert into and retired of the state wrong 24 hours for idiosyncratic games.

To that end, Careem says it volition person dedicated pickup lanes astatine Qatar's Doha International Airport and Hamad International Airport providing nonstop rides to each 8 World Cup stadiums. 

And to hole for the ample measurement of tourists coming into Qatar and the wider portion from elsewhere successful Asia, Careem has partnered with different countries' fashionable rideshare and payments apps — Grab, Alipay, and Kakao — based successful Singapore, China and South Korea, respectively — for nonstop app integration truthful that users tin publication Careem taxis connected the apps they already use. Grab is the most-used rideshare app successful Southeast Asia.