Football fans will travel to Qatar in their thousands a decade from now, but in the meantime, the eyes of regional and global contractors are trained on the peninsula, waiting for a construction boom to begin.

The boom has not yet arrived; regional projects tracker MEED Projects shows that about $229bn-worth of schemes are planned or under way in Qatar, up just 3.2 per cent from the same time last year. But the work will have to pick up soon. By 2022, Qatar must be prepared to welcome at least 400,000 fans. This is the number that descended on South Africa when it hosted the football tournament in 2010. The timescale means a massive volume of projects will have to be started and finished within the next 10 years, including metro and rail schemes, real estate projects and stadiums.

There is little consensus on the exact scale of Qatar’s World Cup development ambitions, but even the more conservative estimates put total spending in excess of $60bn.

Even before bidding for the World Cup, the government had ambitious infrastructure development plans. Its Qatar National Vision 2030 has been in place since 2008 and it encompasses a raft of developments aimed at diversifying the economy away from a reliance on oil and gas, towards becoming a knowledge economy. The World Cup has accelerated parts of this from a 20-year to a 10-year timetable.

The most obvious projects that must be completed before the World Cup kicks off are the stadiums. Qatar plans to build nine new facilities and upgrade three existing ones at a cost of $3.5-4m. Each stadium will seat at least 45,000 fans. Qatar’s hot, humid and sandy climate means it faces some unique problems in designing the stadiums.

Chief among these is keeping fans and players cool. The average temperature is 42 degrees Celsius in July, and this can rise to 50ºC on particularly hot days.

Its hostile climate was one of the reasons Qatar did not make the shortlist in 2010 when it applied to host the 2016 summer Olympics. To ensure the heat will not be a hindrance to its World Cup bid, Qatar has insisted it can limit stadium temperatures to 27C.

A complaint from firms working in Qatar is that it can take a long time for projects to get started

Qatar already had one fully air-conditioned venue, the 15,000-seat Al-Saad stadium, and when officials from Fifa, football’s governing body, visited, they were impressed by a game hosted in a 500-seat showcase stadium designed and built by UK firms Arup Associates and Mott MacDonald. The temperature outside was 44C; inside the solar-powered stadium it was 23C.

A sufficient number of hotel rooms must be prepared to cope with the influx of fans, and Qatar must make sure its infrastructure is solid enough to not only transport visitors between the games and their accommodation, but also to allow the logistics of carrying out such large-scale projects.

To host the World Cup, Qatar has committed to providing up to 90,000 hotel rooms. At the end of 2011, Qatar had 74 hotels with a total of 15,312 beds. By the end of 2013, the total number of rooms is expected to have doubled to reach about 30,000.

At present, there are 77 hotels planned or under construction in Qatar which will deliver more than 17,000 rooms. From 2014 onwards, it is expected 5,000 new rooms will enter the Qatari hotel market each year.

According to the World Travel & Tourism Council, the travel and tourism industry directly and indirectly contributed 3.2 per cent of Qatar’s gross domestic product in 2011, or $5.8bn. This compares with 13.5 per cent in the UAE and 35.2 per cent in Lebanon. Meanwhile, the sector accounted for 3 per cent of total employment, or 36,300 jobs. The council expects Qatar’s travel and tourism industry to be the fastest growing in the region over the next decade as it gears up to host the World Cup.

Stadiums and hotel construction need manpower, plant and equipment, and materials. The construction boom will generate demand for these as well as engineering expertise. Qatar lacks a public transport system, needed to get fans around the country, and its World Cup preparations will place extra emphasis on developing the country’s infrastructure.

Qatar plans to spend $20bn on upgrading existing roads and building new ones. The programme includes developing the $687m Lusail Expressway, the Dukhan Freeway, the Doha Expressway and the Doha Bay Crossing, which will link New Doha International airport, Doha port, the corniche and the Lusail City development.

The projects focus will shift to tendering and awarding contracts on rail and stadium schemes

A $35bn rail programme will see the construction of high-speed rail links, light railways linking Doha to the Lusail City and West Bay developments, and the Doha metro. The metro is an ambitious project meant to ease congestion in Doha with four lines running 358 kilometres between 100 stations. The first stage will serve the World Cup stadiums and has been made a priority by Qatar Railways Company (QRail). The initial Red line will run from the new airport to West Bay in central Doha.

The metro’s first phase of construction has been brought forward in anticipation of another major sporting event. Qatar is bidding for the 2020 summer Olympics, and the International Olympic Committee was due to announce candidate cities in late May 2012.

Qatar’s World Cup preparations are being steered by its Supreme Committee for Qatar 2022, which was set up in April 2011 under the presidency of the crown prince, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani.

In January 2011, the Ministry of Municipality and Urban Planning appointed UK consultancy Atkins to oversee the establishment of a Central Planning Office, which will steer Qatar’s infrastructure developments. Atkins’ three-year contract is worth about $108m and signifies the first major step towards the coming projects boom.

A common complaint from contractors working in Qatar is that it can take a long time for projects to get started. Stadiums take only a few years to build, but the major infrastructure projects will be more pressing and must be started soon.

Companies hoping to work on upcoming projects are starting to manoeuvre themselves into position now. It can take upwards of six months for contractors and consultancies to get registered and be able to legally bid for work in Qatar. When they do, they also need to secure bond financing, which can total up to 30 per cent of the value of a project.

Premium research provider MEED Insight showed in its Qatar Projects 2012-22 report that at least $140bn of projects will be put out to tender over the next decade. Now that programme managers and consultants such as Atkins are being appointed, the country’s projects focus will shift to tendering and awarding the first contracts on rail and stadium schemes.

Oil and gas project activity will drop off this year, meaning that the total value of contracts awarded in 2012 will be similar to the $15bn awarded in 2011. But in 2012 and 2014, the World Cup influence will begin to kick in, with contract awards reaching $25bn-30bn a year.

The boom may take a while to start, but the projects sector must accelerate fast if the country is to be ready in time to host one, and possibly two, of the biggest sporting events in the world. For suppliers, contractors and other businesses, the opportunities will be enormous.