Beijing 2008 - Cheaper Hotels

The Chinese authorities have announced that it will be cheaper to stay and watch the 2008 Beijing Olympics than it was for the 2004 Athens Olympics.

Xiang Ping, vice-director of the Games Services Department of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad commented that as "Beijing has enough hotels, prices are sure to be lower ... As we promised in our Olympic bid, the highest price for a standard room for accredited participants will be no higher than US$370."

The average price for a five-star hotel room will be US$353, while that for four-star and three-star hotel rooms will be US$272 and US$176 respectively. This compares to prices of around 500 euros (US$628.9) for a five-star room during the 2004 Athens Olympics.

Quite interestingly the Chinese have continued to adhere to the fundamentals of a capitalist economy by allowing hotels to set their own prices according to market demand.

During the games, the Beijing Tourism Administration estimates that Beijing will receive between 500,000 and 550,000 overseas tourists and spectators, whilst the number of domestic visitors will reach 2.58 million.

We know that the city is huge, the facilities will be fantastic so I don't expect to see any scare stories on the news just like there were for the last summer Olympics.