HOTEL PRICES in London have soared for bookings during this year’s Olympic Games, even though large numbers of rooms have gone back on the market, following a decision by the Olympic organisers to cancel a reservation for a quarter of the rooms it believed it needed.
Sandie Dawe, head of the VisitBritain tourism promotion body, described the behaviour of hotels as playing a game of “who blinks first” with tourists. Some hotels were holding back from reaching deals with tour operators, she said, in the hope of getting better prices.
However, their calculations may be upset by the decision of Locog, the organising committee for the London 2012 Games, to cancel a reservation it had made for 120,000 bed nights between July 27th and August 12th.
VisitBritain is confident tourist numbers to London will match last year’s, despite the presence of the Olympics, which is expected to deter some people from travelling to the city during peak summer months.
Hoteliers have put aside 40,000 rooms in the city to cope with Olympic demand, industry sources said, while budget travel companies have already removed London from their destination list this year because of prices.
Large numbers of tourists stayed away from Sydney in 2000 and Athens in 2004 when they hosted the Games.
UK tourism minister John Penrose said: “The principal trap is that potential domestic and foreign visitors who aren’t avid sporting fans can be put off visiting an entire country for the whole of an Olympic year.”
The European Tour Operators’ Association, which has taken a pessimistic view of the value of the Olympics to London, warned that even a perception that costs in London were rising could deter many visitors from travelling.
“It’s fair to say many people have been put off coming to London this summer. They have been scared off because of the high hotel prices.
“There is probably going to be economic decline because of this, but we don’t know by how much,” said its chief executive, Tom Jenkins.
Despite evidence that some hotels have increased their July rates from less than £100 to nearly £200 (€120 to €240), VisitBritain’s David Leslie insisted prices “pretty much reflect” what would be usually charged in London during peak season.
Weekday delays of up to 30 minutes to get a train are expected at the major Tube bottlenecks, Canary Wharf, Bond Street and London Street, says London Transport.
The Tube system carries just shy of four million passengers a day, while buses take six million more. The busiest day in the Tube’s history was on December 9th, 2012, when it carried 4.2 million. However, peak Olympics demand will hit 4.5 million passengers.