Beijing hotels slash prices as world shuns Olympics

HOTELS in Beijing are slashing their room rates for next month's Olympics after an expected rush of visitors failed to materialise.

The Chinese capital had originally been expecting 500,000 foreign guests for the Games, but that estimate has been scaled back. Some people have been scared off by high prices, while others have had trouble getting visas amid tightened security.

Fan Runjun, of the Chinese travel website Ctrip.com, said many two-star to four-star hotels had reduced their prices by between 10 per cent and 20 per cent compared with May and June.

Some had slashed rates by as much as 30 per cent, said Mr Fan, whose site lists about 500 hotels in its English-language section.

The usual pre-Olympic festive atmosphere that host cities experience has not yet hit Beijing, with some hotels feeling empty and listless. In June, the number of tourists heading to Beijing, including overseas and domestic visitors, declined by 19.9 per cent from a year earlier, according to the Beijing Tourism Authority.

Now, average room prices in three-star hotels are down to 400 yuan (£30) per night, from 700 yuan in previous months. Four-star hotels have dropped their rates to about 800 yuan a night, from 1,500 yuan.

China has ratcheted up security for the Olympics, tightening visa rules even for foreign travellers who hold tickets for the Games, which will run from 8 to 24 August. Multiple-entry visas have also been restricted, causing a drop in business travel.

The government has said the Games are a target for terrorists, and it has reported breaking up plots to attack the event by Islamic radicals in the western province of Xinjiang. In a show of force, China's military has stationed a ground-to-air missile battery only 300 metres from one Beijing Olympic venue.

Luo Qiong, a public relations manager at the Xiao Xiang Hotel, a three-star establishment near the Temple of Heaven in southern Beijing, said it had cut prices by 20 per cent.

That followed a drop in the number of guests caused by the visa restrictions and the fact many exhibitions had moved to other cities in China.

"As a result of all that, our occupancy isn't as good as we expected. And I don't think things will get any better, even with the rate cut," she said.

A man named Wu from the China Hotel Management Association, who was unwilling to give his full name or position, as is common in China, said most three-star hotels or below were cutting prices because occupancy rates were not as high as expected.

"Now that they found there are not enough guests booking their rooms, they have to cut their prices," he said.

Most hotels that have been approved by the Beijing Olympic Organising Committee are four- or five-star, Mr Wu said, and their rooms have already been booked. Those hotels cater to Olympic officials, sponsors and national Olympic delegations, and their prices were set last year by negotiation, rather than by market demand.

Tian Ye, the manager of the sales department of the three-star Fuhao Hotel in the central shopping district of Wangfujing, minutes from Tiananmen Square, said it cut its rates last month by about 20 per cent.

He revealed that a quarter of the hotel's foreign bookings had been cancelled at the end of May as a result of the massive earthquake in south-west China and the snowstorms that struck the south in February. "It is getting harder as the Olympics approaches to sell rooms. Now we have cut our prices to attract domestic guests," he said.

BACKGROUND

THE security measures being taken in Beijing for the Olympics are unprecedented in peacetime, with some fearing a heavy handedness that could mar the event. Already a battle is being fought with foreign TV companies denied access to Tiananmen Square, as well as control over broadcasts.

Some measures are less invasive to foreigners, such as a one-month ban announced yesterday on the production and sale of replica guns.

Beijing has started security checks on people entering airport terminals and is asking subway passengers to take a swig of any bottled fluids they carry. The government was yesterday forced to deny a report of a ban on Africans and Mongolians in bars for the duration of the games because of concern over drug-dealing.