Kaiserslautern's population explodes as World Cup fans flock to city

As the 12 host cities put the finishing touches to their preparation to the FIFA World Cup 2006, they await the descent of an estimated 3-4 million fans marking the culmination of some 6 years of preparation, organisation and investment. Whilst internationally recognised German cities such as Berlin, Munich and Frankfurt are used to coping with large scale international events, others will be looking to capitalise on the spotlight this June.

Germany, as Europe’s most populous nation has several large cities with strong infrastructures capable of hosting international events. But the World Cup 2006 sees the emergence of some new and smaller German cities into the spotlight. Kaiserslautern, with a population of under 100,000 plus a US military population of around 30,000 is, along with Gelsenkirchen, the smallest of the host cities and perhaps the biggest test of infrastructure will be in this South West German city.

Kaiserslautern is set to host 5 matches over the course of the month and will play host to fans from the USA, Japan, Spain and Italy amongst others during this time. But a small city has had to develop infrastructure to cope with its’ new found status. Additional accommodation has been added to the city to help with the influx and great efforts have been made to ensure that all fans can be catered for. Those planning on travelling to Kaiserslautern would be best advised to check the availability of hotel room in the area through major hotel resellers and the local authority website (http://www.kaiserslautern.de ) for up to date information and advice.

Although not a major city, Kaiserslautern is well served by no less than three regional airports all of which have good domestic flights to and from the other host cities, and making transfers easy for international flights (http://www.britishairways.com/findaflight/europe/flights/from/united-kingdom-to-germany.html ). The city is well linked to by Germany’s autobahn system and driving to and from this city and onwards to other venues is relatively simple. Most of the major car hire firms have a presence either in Kaiserslautern itself or in the regional airports which serve the city (http://easycar.com/aspx/car-hire/location/GermanyAirports.aspx/EN )

Kaiserslautern tourist board
Kaiserslautern local authority website