London 2012: hotels persist with Olympian price hikes
Baku, February 25 (AZERTAC). Visitors to London during this summer`s Olympic Games can expect to be charged up to three times the normal rate for accommodation, despite a sharp increase in the number of hotel rooms available.
Last month LOCOG, the organising committee of the Games, returned more than 120,000 unneeded reservations to hoteliers, a move that many predicted would see average rates fall.
But while the rooms were offered to LOCOG at a subsidised rate, for the use of sponsors, media personnel and International Olympic Committee members, hoteliers are continuing to charge the general public well over the odds.
Accommodation at the Premier Inn Victoria, for example, during the Games, which runs from July 27 until August 12, costs from £199, a rate that is non-refundable and must be paid in advance. For the rest of August, rooms start at £87. At the Premier Inn Old Street, August rates range from £75 to £132, but during the Games the cheapest rooms are also £199.
A room at the W Leicester Square, for stays at the beginning of August, costs from £559 per night, and at the Park Lane Hotel, rates start at £479. During the second half of the month, accommodation at the same hotels costs from £299 and £188 per night, respectively.
At the Novotel London Paddington, room rates during the Olympics are more than double (from £299 per night) what they are during the rest of the summer (from £149). And at the Z Hotel in Soho, a two-night stay during the Olympics costs from £186 a night, compared to just £102 a night in the week after the closing ceremony.
Telegraph Travel`s findings are supported by a new Which? Travel study, which highlights increases in room rates of up to 300 per cent at Holiday Inn and Travelodge hotels. With the start of the Games just five months away, criticism of the high cost of hotel rooms for the period covering the event has increased in recent weeks. Speaking in the Commons earlier this month, Tessa Jowell, the Labour MP and shadow minister for London and the Olympics, described the cost of hotel stays during the Games as a “scandal”. She cited the case of a woman from Exeter who she said was forced to pay £1,000 a night for a room fitted with a hoist, to allow her to take her disabled daughter to the Paralympics. She said the room was normally priced at £375.
John Penrose, the minister for tourism, responded by claiming the release of rooms by LOCOG would ease the restriction in supply.
“It has always been the case that prices alter during the course of the season - that is entirely natural,” he added.
Last summer Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, launched the London Visitor Charter, which aims to “provide the means by which visitors to London can readily identify businesses and attractions that have made a firm commitment to reasonable and fair trading terms” during the Olympics.
But after more than seven months, just six hotels have signed up to the scheme - and four of those properties (Tylney Hall in Hampshire, Ashdown Park Hotel in East Sussex, the Grand Hotel in Eastbourne and Luton Hoo Golf and Spa) lie well outside the M25.
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