London 2012: Hotel rooms still empty for Olympics - and prices are falling

Wednesday, June 27, 2012
10:31 AM

With one month to go until the start of the London 2012 Olympics there are still hotel rooms available for visitors – and prices are coming down.

Although the average cost of a hotel room in the capital during the Games period is £160 – 75 per cent up on the same time last year - prices have gone down 25 per cent over the past two weeks, according to Hotels.com.

The company says there are even rooms available for as low as £59 a night.

Many of the rooms which Games organisers Locog had reserved are being put back into circulation and new hotels are being opened.

Another reason for the falling rates is that many hotels have started to remove their length-of-stay restrictions and are now selling more rooms for one-night stays.

Also, demand has not been as strong as originally expected as tour operators have booked their regular groups to other European capitals, giving London a miss this year.

Seamus MacCormaic of Hotels.com said: “Falling prices are an encouraging move for consumers and there is still good availability across London in all classes of hotel.

“Demand for these rooms is likely to come from the domestic market now, as it may be too late for long-haul travellers to make plans to visit.

“However, the good news for the industry is that interest is definitely there as searches for London from the UK for the Olympic period are currently running 22 per cent higher than the same time last year.

“We are seeing promotional prices start to come through and we do expect this trend to continue.”