The World Cup is set to be a major financial disappointment for the host nation South Africa, after it became clear that international fans have decided to stay away and their tickets are being sold cheaply to South Africans.

Less than three weeks before kick-off on 11 June, South Africa's revamped airports and spruced-up cities are staging an impressive show of readiness for the arrival of international fans – although now it seems there may be half a million fewer than expected.

Organisers have revised visitor estimates – and thus tourism income – down from an initial 750,000 to 200,000. Airlines, hotels and guesthouses are slashing their prices. On 15 April, hundreds of thousands of cut-price match tickets went on sale in South Africa, in a bid to fill 3.2m seats at 64 matches. At the taxpayers' expense, municipalities and state-owned companies such as Telkom have bought thousands of tickets to give away to employees or offer as prizes.

Local fans, however, are in festive mood. On Friday a street party hosted in Soweto by Winnie Madikizela-Mandela marked a move by the ruling ANC to secure support for the football spectacular in the country's impoverished and restive townships.

But the country remains divided between those who believe there should be no price tag on the nation-building potential of hosting the World Cup and others who say that the 33bn rand (£3bn) cost of preparing for the competition should have been spent on improving the lives of the poor. The amount is roughly equal to the loan the World Bank gave South Africa last month to revamp its failing electricity supply system.

Fifa, the world football body, has announced record prize money for the final and will make £2.3bn from television rights and sponsorship deals. Amid efforts by the organisers to promote hard-to-sell matches such as Australia-Serbia on 23 June in Nelspruit, gauging ticket sales has become almost impossible. Last week, despite an earlier announcement that the France-Uruguay match in Cape Town on 11 June was sold out, several hundred tickets for the game were suddenly released.

South Africa's organising committee chairman, Danny Jordaan, denied that the country's crime rate – 50 murders a day – had deterred international fans. "When I went to London in March, the only problem people kept mentioning was the recession,'' he said. He conceded that Fifa's rigid internet-based ticket sales system had been a handicap to fans in South Africa and, especially, to those on the rest of the continent. By early March, football-mad Nigeria had ordered only 700 tickets, prompting Jordaan's team to launch a ticket-in-hand roadshow in the five African countries (Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Algeria and Cameroon) that have qualified.

Fifa claims that African fans outside South Africa have bought 40,000 tickets. "If you look at where tickets have sold best [the United States, with 80,000 sales], this is also the place with the best internet penetration. This is a lesson for the future,'' said Jordaan.

Udesh Pillay, of the South African Human Sciences Research Council, said the World Cup would not be of economic benefit to the country where millions of people still do not have electricity or running water in their homes. "Although 150,000 jobs were created in the build-up to the event, they were temporary. It will not be possible to say that the event has reduced poverty. It will nevertheless contribute 0.2% to 0.5% to our growth," he said.

The much-vaunted African "feel'' of the World Cup is also in question. At Fifa's insistence, the 10 host cities introduced bylaws to protect their sponsors from "ambush marketing''. The laws will affect the informal sector – the biggest single part of South Africa's economy – as thousands of street vendors are banned from coming closer to stadiums than 800 metres. Next to Ellis Park in Johannesburg, chicken seller Regina Twala made headlines for refusing to budge, but eventually moved to a "demarcated selling area'' outside the perimeter, leaving the coast clear for KFC and McDonald's.

The government says its biggest worry is that the minibus taxi industry – which until now has held a virtual monopoly on public transport in cities – will make good on its threat to disrupt the World Cup. The industry feels threatened by the introduction of buses that are to be used to ferry fans before being redeployed as the main form of transport in and out of townships.

The so-called bus rapid transport system represents the main "legacy project'' of the World Cup for millions of South Africans. But in March members of the powerful and often violent taxi industry smashed up one of Johannesburg's new buses. Last month they marched in Pretoria, complaining of having been "left out'' of the World Cup and threatening to disrupt the event. On Friday, in a bid to reassure fans that the bus system will be safe, President Jacob Zuma travelled on the Rea Vaya system in Soweto.

Despite disappointment over the tourist income that the 64-match World Cup will generate for the country, Jordaan insists the event will be a long-term asset. "The new infrastructure, like the roads, the airport expansion programmes and the investment in telecoms, will be there after the World Cup and will help our economy to grow," he said.

Jordaan believes football fans can still save the day: "The global recession has played a part in the low sales of tickets, but I also think fans are influenced by whether their country has a chance. I think we will see an influx for the last 16 matches. When you have big teams going into the quarter-finals and semi-finals, fans just cannot keep away.''