[photopress:hotels_Zhang_Huiguang.jpg,full,alignright]There are still plenty of hotel rooms available for the Beijing Olympics. Director of Beijing’s Tourism Bureau Zhang Huiguang (seen in our illustration) says the crunch that was predicted doesn’t seem to be happening.
She said that about 500,000 foreigners were expected for the games which is in line with earlier predications.
She said only 77% of capacity at Beijing’s five-star hotels have been booked during the Aug. 8-24 Olympic Games and the four-star hotel rate is only 44%. And it’s even lower for three-and two-stars.
There seems to be a logical contradiction here. If the numbers of visitors expected comes up to expectations how can the hotels be so under-utilized? Has someone made a miscalculation?
One reason for the low books could, perhaps, be China’s crack down on visa procedures.
This makes it more difficult to plan travel to the Olympics and, essentially, makes it a one stop journey. Another reason, perhaps, is the immense amount of negative publicity caused by the Tibetan demonstrations. Added to which was worldwide continuing reporting on air pollution problems.
Finally, the sheer total cost of seeing the Olympics may have deterred many potential tourists.
Source: The Canadian Press