Organisers of next month’s Paralympic Games have so far only sold 12% of tickets.
Rio 2016 spokesman Mario Andrada attempted to play down concerns by saying that this month’s Olympic Games had experienced poor initial sales, but he expected growing local interest to boost Paralympic sales.
Andrada added that organisers hoped a new advertising push would help with ticket sales ahead of the Paralympics, which starts on September 7.
He said: “We understand that the rhythm of sales for Olympic tickets has picked up dramatically and generally in the history of the Games the energy generated by the Olympic Games tends to help a lot in selling tickets for the Paralympics.
“We want to stage a very successful Paralympics, and we met our sponsors and broadcasters yesterday to confirm this.”
The figures are significantly lower than those previously released by organisers, who claimed in May that more than a third of tickets had already been sold.
Rio de Janeiro’s authorities had planned to buy 47,000 Olympic tickets and 500,000 Paralympic tickets to hand them out free, mainly to public school students. However, in June, a judge blocked the city from going forward with the giveaway, saying such handouts could influence upcoming municipal elections.
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