(Yicai Global) Nov. 22 -- The FIFA World Cup in Qatar is proving a boon for China’s hospitality sector, as soccer fans make a beeline for restaurants and bars to watch matches on big screens.

Orders for dine-in set meals at World Cup-themed restaurants surged 80 percent from last month, figures from Chinese lifestyle services giant Meituan showed. Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Nanjing, and Changsha are the top Chinese cities for watching the World Cup in restaurants.

Users of Meituan’s Dianping, a crowd-sourced reviews app, began searching and booking eateries that would show World Cup matches three weeks before the tournament started. Over the past seven days, searches with the keywords ‘restaurants for World Cup’ soared more than six-fold over the previous seven-day period.

Hotpot and grill restaurants, as well as Western bars, are the most popular venues, data showed. Beer and fried chicken is the combo most fans like to consume while watching the games, with the sales of these set meals surging 357 percent year on year in the three days before the World Cup kicked off.

The World Cup, which got underway at the Al Bayt Stadium in Qatar on Nov. 20, has also boosted the ‘midnight snack’ economy in what is usually China’s non-peak winter season.

Among other cities, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Chongqing, and Nanjing have seen monthly alcohol and beverage orders climb about 35 percent. In Beijing, late-night alcohol and beverage takeaways popped 50 percent in the three days before the World Cup compared with the previous three days, while fruit and vegetable orders rose 30 percent, according to data from online food delivery service platform Ele.me.

Even orders for hotpot pots, beer tumblers, and bottle openers have surged during the World Cup, according to Meituan’s data.

Sales of devices used to watch soccer games has also increased. Three days before the World Cup opening ceremony, orders for projectors surged 165 percent from a year earlier, with those for speakers more than doubling, per Meituan’s figures.

Editors: Zhang Yushuo, Futura Costaglione