Flight prices are always high during the festive season, making money off people’s sentimentalities of spending the holidays with family and friends. Same goes for spiked up hotel prices when an event or festival is happening nearby. Our very own Goa gets expensive in December with Sunburn and Christmas-New Year break, so one can only imagine the astronomical markups during say, the FIFA World Cup.

A report published by Embratur, Brazil’s tourism agency, has found this is largely the case with hotels in Brazil prepping for next year’s football extravaganza, some up to six times their normal rates. In effort to handle this situation, Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff has set up a committee to monitor prices and service quality. The monitoring group will include officials from the ministries of sports, justice, tourism, health, finance, the civil aviation Secretariat and Embratur.

“We don’t set prices and we won’t set prices, but we won’t allow abuses. We will use all the instruments available to the state to ensure the protection of consumer rights, whether Brazilian or foreign.”

Gleisi Hoffmann, Chief of Staff

Amid concerns of capacity, FIFA had already warned against this situation. The average cost per night in Rio around the time of the month-long tournament will be $461, which is $161 more than the cost of staying in a hotel in Berlin when that city staged the 2006 final, according to Embratur’s report. And if you plan to watch the final at Macarena stadium, be prepared to pay more than double the average $200 per night charged in Johannesburg in 2010.

“The measure is essential to ensure a good international image for Brazilian tourism. The monitoring we do of the international media shows that we cannot have a situation that presents a picture of Brazil’s government as one that doesn’t act in the face of abuse.”

Flavio Dino, Embratur’s head

I am not going to Brazil next year, but for the millions that will be there, we sure hope Brazil’s monitoring group can pull this off!