London hotels ‘not profiteering’ from Games, says BHA
Wednesday, 25 Mar, 2011
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Olympic Games organisers will meet with Thomas Cook and London hoteliers today after a row has broken out about inflated accommodation prices in the capital for summer 2012.
The London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (LOCOG) will sit down with members from the British Hospitality Association and with Thomas Cook to iron out the structure and pricing methods used for ticket/hotel packages.
A meeting already held between LOCOG and the BHA has resulted in the BHA issuing a statement strongly denying claims that hotels in the capital have been profiteering from the event.
BHA chief executive Ufi Ibrahim said: “Recent press comment concerning the prices that agents appointed by LOCOG – in particular Thomas Cook – are charging for Olympic ticket and hotel packages has suggested that London hotels are profiteering.
“This is certainly not the case. London hoteliers have no control over the prices that agents are charging.”
LOCOG chief executive Paul Deighton, however, quickly assured the meeting that those London hoteliers who had made a deal with LOCOG to enter into a pricing agreement (and offer below market rates) had fulfilled their side of the bargain.
He added: “This was a core factor in the success of the London 2012 bid.”
Ibrahim said that London’s major hospitality companies had signed agreements to provide 56,000 rooms to LOCOG.
She said: “These agreements stipulate that all participating hotels will charge room rates calculated on an agreed formula, which restricts hotel operators from increasing prices beyond CPI increases and ensures fair pricing. That rate broadly represents the average of a hotel’s room rates between 2007 and 2010.
“Without exception, the prices charged by the hotels that are part of the LOCOG agreement are at a rate which is fair and reasonable. There is no question that hotels are profiteering – indeed the opposite.
“London hotels have agreed to let these rooms at below the current market rate in order to support the Games. Accusations that they are profiteering are totally unfounded.”
by Dinah Hatch
Dinah
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