Sure… as long you aren’t looking in Beijing.
The host city of this summer’s Olympic Games expects 1.5 million visitors from around the world to descend upon the area during the month of August. Four- and five-star hotel rooms, which typically sell for around $350 per night, are going for up to 10 times that amount. Or should I say were going for that amount. According to most hotel managers in Beijing, rooms for the month of August (the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, will be celebrated from August 8-24, 2008) sold out more than a year ago.
In fact, the 305-room, five-star Ritz-Carlton Beijing, the city’s second, which opened just a month ago, was sold out for the Olympics a year before the building opened, according to hotel managers. What’s more, all the bookings are for a minimum of 14 nights.
The story is similar at many other of Beijing’s luxe properties, including the Hilton, the Regent Beijing and the Peninsula, a grand, marble-foyered hotel just off the most famous shopping street in the Chinese capital, Wangfujing.
But there is good news. Beijing’s Tourism Bureau recently announced that of the 120 top-grade hotels registered with the agency about a third still have rooms available for the month of August. The catch: Most of the rooms have been snapped up by tour companies, which means lodging accommodations are not available from the hotels themselves, rather to get one you must pry it from the sticky fingers of the agents.
Your best bet, according to travel experts, is to stick with package deals. Most offer accommodations, tickets to a few Olympic events and at least one day’s sightseeing, and range between $5,000 and $20,000 depending on the agency and the number of days you book.
As for proximity of Beijing hotels to the actual Olympic venues, city leaders say visitors need not be concerned with that issue. Not only has the Beijing government promised to control the traffic, but also the majority of Olympic venues are within half an hour’s drive from most hotels provided you take the expressway.
Finally, while you may have a problem finding a hotel room in Beijing, Olympic officials say contrary to rumors, tickets are still available for all sporting events—-in Beijing, anyway. The safest bet is to go through official ticketing websites like this one.
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