Beijing hotels get cheaper
Beijing: Beijing hotels that had hoped to cash in on an Olympic boom by hiking rates said on Tuesday they were having to slash prices in a last-ditch bid to fill empty rooms.
Occupancy rates for the hotel industry were lower than expected in the run-up to next month’s Games after many hotels more than tripled their normal rates, they said.
Now rates for three and four-star hotels are tumbling as hotels try to fill empty rooms by attracting both overseas and domestic tourists. "Bookings are so low that we have no choice but to cut prices," said Zhang Ting, sales manager for the Zhongyu Century Grand Hotel.
Zhang said that the hotel hiked its rates to 2,500 yuan a night — more than six times the rate of August last year — in a bid to cash in on the Games. — AFP