"Hotels in Beijing are slashing prices for next month's Olympics after the expected windfall of foreign visitors failed to materialise," state media reports today. The statement is a major backtrack after repeated reports throughout the year that Beijing hotels were already fully booked during the Games period.
As we reported, China's much-hyped Olympic tourism boom has been strangled by tightened visa regulations, raised prices and a weakened U.S. Dollar. Now, state media quotes Fan Runjun, of travel Website Ctrip.com, as
saying that many two to four-star hotels "had reduced prices by 10 to
20 per cent compared to May and June, and some had slashed rates by as
much as 30 per cent."
"The usual pre-Olympic festive atmosphere host cities experience has
not yet hit Beijing," Shanghai Daily reports. In June, the number of
visitors to the capital declined by 19.9 per cent from a year earlier,
according to the Beijing Tourism Authority.
Beijing had been expecting 500,000 foreign visitors for the August
Olympics, but has revised that projected figure downward by around 75 per cent in recent weeks
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