Beijing hotel booking steadily up, room rate drops a bit
24/7/2008 17:09
Hotel booking rates in Beijing have steadily risen with the Olympic Games
drawing near, but the room rate has dropped, according to the industry and city
tourism authority.
Hotels near the Olympic venues and Olympic-contracted ones
have reported very good bookings, an insider working with a leading travel
agency told Xinhua today.
"In average 90 percent of rooms in hotels near the
Olympic venues have been booked, even the economy ones," the source said.
The
five-star China World Hotel, one of the Shangri-La hotels and an Olympic
contracted one, has no rooms left during the Games, according to its reservation
desk today.
"Besides the rooms booked by the Beijing Organizing Committee of
the Olympic Games (BOCOG), other rooms left have also been booked," said one of
the hotel public relations personnel. But she refused to give exact numbers of
how many are booked by BOCOG and how many by other clients.
Another Olympic
contracted and five star hotel, Grand Hyatt Hotel, at the center of city
downtown, also reported no rooms left for reservation today.
Jinjiang Inn, an
economy hotel chain, has rooms left during the Games but told Xinhua that quite
a few of their rooms have been booked.
There were media reports recently that
the stricter visa policy China has carried out since June for security concerns
have held foreign tourists back from visiting the country and this has made
hotel room supply greatly exceed demand in Beijing.
However, insiders in
Beijing said no serious effect has been found in the past one and half
months.
"At least our business has not been affected recently," said a Grand
Hyatt Hotel PR officer. "Partly because we are serving business travelers mainly
instead of tourists who come only for the Games."
But the demand is not as
hot as the industry expected.
Xiong Yumei, director of the city tourism
department, confirmed that half of rooms of hotels under four stars have not
been booked during the Games.
Www.ctrip,com, a leading travel booking
website, said in a report that hotels between two and four stars in not that
popular districts have reduced room rates, which they raised dramatically early
this year, by 10 to 20 percent.
In March, the website said that hotel room
rate during the Games increased by six to ten times than the previous
years.
A survey by the city tourism department said, on average, room rates
at five-star hotels continued increasing over the past two months but three-star
and four-star ones dropped by 30 to 40 yuan (4.35 to US$5.8) and two-star ones
down by 85 yuan (US$12.32).
But the room rate is still three or four times
more than the same period last year.
"I do not expect a great up and down of
booking and room rate in the next month," Xiong said.
Presently Beijing is
offering 339,000 rooms or 665,000 beds for travelers. Among them, 816 hotels
with stars are providing 129,000 rooms or 227,000 beds. The daily demand during
the Games is estimated to be 333,000 beds at most.
The supply is sufficient
but hotels with good locations will still be in demand, insiders
said.
Xinhua
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