London Hotels to Hike Prices During Olympics

Tourism authorities have accused several London hotels of hiking room rates for stays during the Olympic Games next year. This comes as one of the hotels has gone as extreme as charging 5 times as much for a standard rate. The 4-star venue is asking £1,100 a night rather than its usual £200 a night rate for rooms during the Olympics.

This is only the most extreme case, as others have been hiking prices as well. Another 4-star venue is charging £297 a night rather than £131, while a 3-star venue has nearly tripled its price to £235 a night.

Ukinbound, the association for the country’s inbound tourism industry, says the move undermines the efforts of the hospitality industry to avoid price-gouging. General secretary Mario Bodini, who’s also the chief executive of JacTravel, said that hotels seem to be overcome with greed.

There are fears that this price-gouging will deter both domestic and overseas travelers for the Games. Government tourism agency VisitBritain says they hoped hoteliers and other hospitality venues would sign up for a ‘fair pricing and practice charter’. Under the charter they would voluntarily agree to offer reasonable and fair prices between June 1, 2012 and September 30, 2012.

VisitBritain head of the 2012 unit Chris Foy says the hotel price increases are a situation they’ve known about, so it’s not a surprise. It’s too soon to determine what London prices will be like during the event, as it will be more real once Olympics tickets go on sale. People being potentially deterred from London is a real issue, he added, and so is what they will do about it.