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BookOTel Olympic Update - One Year To Go

London 2012 Olympics

The London 2012 Olympics start a year today, and in our continuing mission to ensure your business travel goes as smoothly as possible we have prepared the latest information for your attention.

The Olympics will be a once in a lifetime opportunity and the games provide new and exciting opportunities for both London and the whole country. However it's our job to try and plan as far ahead as possible to best cope with any foreseeable disturbances in the summer of 2012.

BookOTel remains in regular contact with the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (LOCOG) and you can be kept up to date with all the latest information we receive by signing up to our alert system.

Impact

The opening ceremony takes place on the 27th July and this marks the beginning of the 17 days of the Olympics. During this time London will be host to 23,000 athletes, 800,000 spectators, a 20,000 person workforce plus 70,000 volunteers.

This is the equivalent of running 26 world championships simultaneously, and although not all of the visitors will require accommodation, a strain will undoubtedly be put on the London room stock for this period as shown in following figures:

Available rooms in London 120,000
LOCOG allocation 52,000 -
Leisure visitors requirement 50,000 -

Resulting bedroom availability 18,000

This represents just 15% of hotel rooms in London, further restricting business travel plans in a city which on average operates at 90% occupancy rates throughout a normal year.

The Bigger Picture

It isn't just London that will feel the effects of the Olympics however, as 250 hotels both inside and outside of London have been contracted, with Weymouth, Coventry, Cardiff, Manchester, Newcastle and Glasgow all being used to host Olympic events. So although London will be focal point, the knock on effects will be felt throughout the United Kingdom.

In addition, the months surrounding the games will also feel the ripple effect due to a busy summer schedule in London and the South East. The result will be reduced availability and higher accommodation rates from the start of June through to the end of September.

What does it all mean?

At the moment the only available information for making predictions are statistics and trends, and no one can really be sure exactly what the impact of the Olympics will be. However we highly recommend that you:

Plan your activities as early as possible
Only travel when it is absolutely necessary
Be prepared to be as flexible as possible with your business plans
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it for your free Olympic consultation or sign up to our alert system to always stay one step ahead.

BookOTel aims to assist wherever possible, so please feel free to get in touch with any queries you may have and we'll be more than happy to help however we can.

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