The Travel Detective

Travel Detective Blog: Olympic Myths and How Travelers Can Benefit

Locations in this article:  Athens, Greece Atlanta, GA Beijing, China London, England Sydney, Australia

Hotel occupancies in London (and in Ireland, Scotland and parts of Wales) are already plummeting in mid-August. One of the reasons is that the original quoted hotel prices for the Olympics were so unreasonably high that most folks simply opted not to go to London at all this year. Translation: a huge buyer’s market for the entire UK immediately following the Olympics.

And, if you still want to go the Games — even at this late date — you may not be out of luck. Hotels have been saying for weeks that they are fully booked. And that Olympics tickets are sold out. Really? It gets down to a definition of terms and the difference between a booked room and a blocked room.

Right about now, hotels are coming to grips with some tough reality. Room rates have fallen 25 percent from their highs in the last couple weeks; some London hotels have gone down as much as 40 percent.

Some hotels had set their prices three times higher than usual in anticipation of the Olympics.

London CityscapeMajor corporate sponsors who have blocked significantly more rooms than they needed are starting to release those blocks. Result: even more vacancies. And the same is true with many tickets to Olympics events. The key is just to call the corporate sponsors (not difficult to find out) and ask which of their executives is in charge of the room and ticket blocks. You might be pleasantly surprised to find yourself in possession of a deeply discounted hotel room and reasonably priced — as in face value — Olympics tickets. There’s little chance of snagging opening ceremonies tickets, or some of the high-profile swimming events, but for everything else you’ve got a good chance.

And when the Olympics concludes, the UK will be on sale for the rest of the year. And no gold medals will be awarded for logic, common sense or pricing. And, if history is any indication, four years from now, the same silly, greedy behavior will once again repeat itself in Brazil.

For more Olympics travel, check out:

By Peter Grenberg for PeterGreenberg.com