Beijing Accommodations Rising Exponentially
The Chinese know a business opportunity when they see it, and the upcoming Olympics is one such opportunity. Contrary to popular belief, it is not too late to book a trip to the Beijing Olympics. Yes, about a million people are already expected to park their butts in there for at least a month, and yes, most of the Beijing hotels are already booked (even with the huge hotel boom) to waiting list extremes. As far as in-demand vacation spots go, prices for accommodations have always been sky-high. But with the Olympics being the biggest event in the year, prices have positively breached the atmosphere and have gone on to astronomical heights. If you plan to stay in Beijing during the Olympics season, well, you'd better have a big and very full pockets because the accommodations there will suck it dry. By that, we refer to those few hotels that still have available bookings, and would gladly give them to anyone who can provide the cash for it.
The Renaissance Beijing Hotel in the Chaoyang district for example, is requiring a fee of 8,000 yuan a night (around $1,115 USD) for their Club Floor deluxe rooms. This is not all-- they also require a minimum booking of 18 nights. The normal rates of the rooms are only around 1,600 to 2,200 yuan, but because high demand had justified the exponential rise, these exorbitantly-priced rooms are still bound to be booked.
Even the non-luxury hotel rooms have made their prices rise as well? The Best Western OL Stadium Hotel, hardly a luxurious place is charging over $500 a night because people will still need rooms, and will pay no matter what the cost.
However, while there is still hope in getting accommodations, the Olympics tickets themselves are an entirely different matter altogether. It is incredibly difficult to get individual tickets through normal means. As of recent, the only way to get an individual ticket officially is through a lottery system, as a huge portion of the tickets have already been sold.
To control the ticket distribution, there is only a certain number of tickets allocated to each country. As of the end of December, more than 4.5 million tickets were already requested during the last lottery. This is good news for some and bad for the others, as 4.5 million is more than double the actual number of tickets which are assigned for that particular sales period. It is true that more tickets could be distributed closer to the games, but there are few guarantees of actually getting one.
If you don't want to do it the long, official way, there is another way. Tour operators which specialize in Olympics have already stocked a huge number of tickets and also secured several blocks of hotel rooms, though these packages will be invariably expensive. For example, CoSport, a tour operator based on New Jersey had compiled several Olympics packages featuring tickets to many events along with accommodations at the Landmark Hotel in Chaoyang district for five days, for the lovely price of $5,943 per person, based on 2 people sharing a room.
For those who can't afford such extravagant prices or are not really mindful of luxury, there are hostels in Beijing that offer private rooms and bathrooms at only $100 a night, which is a great step down from the $1,000 / night deal of luxury hotels. Moreover, a homestay program was set up by the government, where 1,000 Beijing families were recruited to host some foreigners during the games. As of recent, 400 English-speaking residents have already listed rooms for rent at Homestay Beijing 2008.
