Hotel Rates Set to Rise for London Olympics

Daily Mail: Tourists are facing the prospect of massive hikes in the cost of accommodations in London during next year’s Olympic Games.

Many of the capital's hotels intend to raise their prices during the Games and one hotel intends to charge five times the normal tariff, according to a report by the Financial Times.

The four-star hotel quoted £1100 ($1,772) for a room that would normally cost £200 ($322), according to a wholesale tour specialist who asked for neither the hotel nor his company to be named.

Another four-star hotel quoted £297 ($478) per room per night during the Games compared with £131 ($211) this year, and a three-star hotel has more than doubled its £80 ($129) a night rate to £162 ($261). One hotel is planning to implement a strict 100 per cent cancellation fee during the Games, which run from 27 July to 12 August 2012.

The same hotel is also demanding that 70 per cent of bookings must be paid by the end of September 2011 and it is insisting that the final balance should be handed over by 31 January.

Tickets for London 2012 go on sale tomorrow and tourism chiefs are worried that the price hike will deter people from visiting London during the Games. Chris Foy, a spokesman for the government's tourism agency Visit Britain, told TravelMail: ‘We will get a much clearer idea of hotel prices once the tickets go on sale but we have heard from tour operators overseas that they are having trouble booking hotels during the Games’.

‘Hotels will lose out if they price their rooms too highly because people will hold out for better deals. Ultimately the market will dictate the prices.’

Visit Britain said it hoped that hoteliers and other hospitality businesses would sign up to an industry-led 'fair pricing and practice charter' under which they would voluntarily agree to offer fair and reasonable prices between 1 June and 30 September next year.