London Olympics Considers Floating Hotels

Compare Away: London Olympics are considering using floating hotels or ‘floatels’ to help accommodate the extra visitors who will be in London for the Olympics next summer. They would offer guests different types of experience on the River Thames. The proposal is that at least three cruise liners would be docked on the river, all containing hotel rooms and they would be just a few miles away from Olympic Park. They would be very close to moorings belonging to the rich and famous.

With 5.5 million extra visitors expected in London during the games, there will be a lot of pressure on hotels. Although not all will be staying in the capital, there will be one million expected to be looking for accommodation with only 120,000 hotel rooms available. This will obviously create problems and some hotels will be charging ten times their normal rate for rooms.

Floatels were used in South Africa during the FIFA world cup, chartered by a German Company, One Ocean Club and so have been used for a sporting event before. They could offer a good and unique solution for visitors seeking close accommodation to the Olympic stadium. It could also help the congestion problems, as guests could potentially walk the three miles to the stadium, rather than having to take a car or public transport or even if they do, they will not have to travel far. Even with this, there will still be a lot of people looking for extra accommodation and places outside of the city centre will certainly benefit from this with a big demand for self catering accommodation. Holiday rentals price comparison site Compareaway.co.uk has already seen a massive surge in demand of customers looking for holiday apartments in and around London during the Olympics.