Will the Hotel room rates double in 2012?

[richard]

London has over 100,000 hotel rooms but what if all the room rates are doubled because of the Olympics? Are the government likely to protect us and make sure we don’t get ripped off?

[tyler]

If London hotels are thinking of doubling their room rates, they should take notice of what happened in Athens last year during the 2004 Games:

Greeks cut hotel prices as tourists stay away

DINA KYRIAKIDOU IN ATHENS

GREEK hoteliers are slashing prices in a last-ditch effort to lure visitors to Athens this summer after hopes of an Olympics-driven tourist boom boosted by Greece’s unexpected victory in the Euro 2004 football championships were dashed.

Security concerns, high prices and a failure to link Greece’s sea-and-sun image with the modern Olympics have pushed foreign arrivals down by 12 per cent over the last year, nine days before the games begin.

Adding to hoteliers’ woes, 7,500 Athens hotel workers went on their sixth strike for higher wages yesterday.

"The drop recorded compared to expectations is dramatic," said Nikos Angelopoulos, vice-president of the Greek Tourist Industry Association. "The Olympics on their own were not reason enough for foreigners to come."

Most officials blame Greece’s failure to capitalise on the world’s biggest sports event on greed.

Hotels inflated prices last winter in the hope of high demand that never materialised and instead scared away many visitors.

"The prices we got from hotels in the winter were too high. Now we keep getting offers slashing them drastically," said Beryl Fotopoulos, co-owner of Metropolitan Travel in Athens, which specialises in travel to Greece.

The Hellenic Association of Travel and Tourist Agencies (HATTA) said Athens hotels had expected to sell 100,000 to 150,000 beds a night during the games but have sold only 70,000 to 120,000.

They are cutting prices for mid-range hotels to 150 (£100) from 350-400 and for luxury hotels to 350 from 500-600.

"Some hoteliers overpriced and didn’t get any clients. It serves them right," said HATTA’s president, Yiannis Evangelou.

Greece had 12 million visitors last year, more than its population of 11 million. Tourism makes up 18 per cent of Greece’s economy and employs about 800,000 people.

The games organisers, ATHOC, have booked about 90 per cent of the rooms in the Athens region but, despite the guaranteed arrivals of Olympic officials and guests, the industry has failed to buck a declining trend in recent years.

In central Athens’ Syntagma Square, usually teeming with tourists, few foreign visitors could be spotted on a recent afternoon. A group of Romanians said they were impressed with the city’s Olympic makeover but were concerned about costs.

"It’s a very nice city and the people are also very nice but the prices are a bit high," said Doru Paunescu, 35.

The Greek Tourist Organisation (EOT) said prices were the main reason for the decline but also admitted its advertising campaign came too late and did not capitalise on the Olympics. It said it was now trying to lure last-minute travellers.

"Our expectations were too high when we got the Olympics. It was wrong to focus all hopes on this one year," the EOT president, Harry Coccossis, said.

Yesterday’s strike appeared to have no serious impact on operations at some main hotels but employees have not ruled out an escalation of action during the Olympics, which run from 13 to 29 August.

"It depends on the hoteliers," said Christos Katsotis, the president of the city’s main hotel workers’ union. It represents 7,500 workers, most of them junior-level staff.

Union bosses said the participation rate stood at 70 per cent, but hotels presented a mixed picture. In one hotel guests filing down to breakfast were not even aware of a strike.

"We were just told to come in a bit earlier in case someone tried to stop us coming to work," said a young woman serving coffees.

Hoteliers, who have invested heavily in improving the infrastructure of hotels, slammed what they described as "blackmail" tactics.

The strike was unnecessary because workers were given pay increases under an industrial tribunal ruling in June, Athens hoteliers said in a statement.

"And this [pay rises] occurred during a period when tourism to the Attica region declined for the third consecutive year."

The striking workers, who include both Greeks and foreign staff, say they now earn an average 500 per month, about the same as the day rate at some of Athens’s most expensive hotels.

They want salaries doubled to what they say is the minimum wage of 1,100. "We love the tourists and the people, but we have got to survive as well. We can’t survive on this," said one hotel worker, Nicos Papageorgiou.

Meanwhile, Greek officials yesterday said years of delays and infighting had pushed up the cost of staging the Games beyond all expectations and forced the country’s 2004 budget deficit way over European Union limits.

"The way things are going, the budget deficit is heading towards 4 per cent [of GDP], maybe a bit over," the deputy finance minister, Petros Doukas, said. The EU’s limit is 3 per cent.

[Nancy Celestine]

I want to take my son and his gf to LV next year. But I don't want to cramp their style by 3 of us in 1 room. I'll get my own. Everything says double occupancy, is it more expensive for one person in a room?

[Geoff]

Room rates in many hotels in the UK are charged per person per night instead of by single or double room rates. If you want to book a room in London for the 2012 Olympics then expect to pay through the nose for it because the rates will go up. If you learn of any hotel chain offering room rates now for the London 2012 Olympics then post their contact details on here.

[richard]

In the current dire economic circumstances we are all in, thanks to those useless people that should know better, I think any hotel chain that attempts to double their room rates ahead of the 2012 Olympics must be either very brave or very stupid.

Much as the desire to increase the room rates in order to profit from the London Olympics in 2012 must be very strong, it also should be remembered that London already commands some pretty high room rates. Add in a bit of terrorism/rioting and it won't take much to put visitors off from visiting the capital.

From what I saw in Beijing, many hotels were indeed left far from full due to increased rates by many hotels plus of course the dramatic increase in the price of flight tickets to Beijing.

Many visitors to London will be flying over from the USA whom are still in the midst of their own major recession and no matter what the politicians say, unless people have spare cash in their pockets and are confident of their future job prospects they won't be splashing out on expensive holidays abroad.

I do wonder how successful a sales drive might be for any hotel chain to start offering guaranteed rooms rates now for the London 2012 Olympics? If nothing else they could perhaps treat the publicity as free advertising for themselves. Compare that to how much advertising worldwide would cost and it might look quite appetising? I don't work in advertising or in hotels so will leave it to those that are in the know to make the decisions

[adam123]

Yes you are right because the inflation is going in all over the world and the Economical crisis create so much problem due to this Hotel rates might be high in 2012.