Rooms are still available for less than £100 a night for last minute visitors to London for the 2012 Olympic Games commencing this month, said UK-based holiday company, HolidayExtras.com.
The company has reported that hotels, such as the four-star Heathrow Renaissance, have rooms available for £86 per night, between July 27 and August 12, 2012. The hotel is located close to London Heathrow Airport terminals 1 and 3, and has easy access to central London by transport links.
Olympic ticket holders may also reserve a room at a Heathrow Undercover hotel, or an unnamed hotel, for £99 per night at the HolidayExtras website.
Undercover hotels are hotels that have rooms to fill at a discount, but are only prepared to offer the discount, incognito, through a booking agent, meaning that customers buy the rooms before being informed which hotel they are stopping at. A double room at an Undercover hotel at London Gatwick Airport is currently on offer for £75 per night during the Games period.
Jason Hindle, the head of commercial at HolidayExtras.com, said, ‘It looks as though a lot of hoteliers and hotel booking agents are pricing themselves out of the market.
Heathrow might not be in the centre of London, but it is the official airport for the Games – so transport links to and from the city are going to be regular and reliable. Plus the Heathrow Express is just 15 minutes from Paddington.’
In June this year, hotel prices in London averaged around £160 a night for the Games period, and had peaked at £202 weeks earlier, in anticipation of a sudden rush for rooms at the last minute by international and British travellers visiting the city for the sporting event. Although current prices are 25 percent more than at the same time last year, falling prices are indicative of excess capacity, and more rooms are becoming available every day.
