Despite the efforts of British tourism
authorities, Chinese travellers have been scared away from the country by high
costs during the upcoming London Olympic Games.
While
the Queen's look-alike appeared at a Shanghai shopping mall to lure them to the
United Kingdom during the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, major travel agencies in
Beijing and Shanghai were dropping plans to take tourists to the Games.
Instead,
they encouraged travellers to postpone the trip to London until the end of the
Games (July 27 to Aug 12) due to cost concerns.
"As
far as I know, our travel agency has no special promotion in Beijing and
Shanghai to organise group tours to London for the Games," said Liu Xin
from China Youth Travel Service's department of outbound tourism.
"It's
just too risky for even a big agency like us to do Olympic business. Take
booking flights as an example. Full costs need to be paid at least three months
in advance to secure the spots, which is much more than usual, plus tourists
wouldn't make firm travel plans three months ahead of schedule. We're simply
not sure whether it's a profitable deal."
Liu
said she would advise her customers to avoid the Olympic peak season.
Paul
Rogers, British Airways' marketing manager for the Middle East and Asia-Pacific
regions, said the company had no plan to put additional direct flights between
Shanghai and London as well as Beijing and London this summer.
"But
there is 36 per cent additional capacity between Shanghai and London since we
changed the airplanes into bigger ones at the beginning of this year,"
said Rogers. "Clearly we'd like to do more on the routes, but before that,
we need to be confident that we can fill this extra capacity."
An
average traveller is expected to pay an extra 3,000 to 4,000 yuan (US$470 to
$630) on a 10-day trip to the UK during the Olympics compared with last summer,
according to Gu Chao from Shanghai's travel agency SAL Tour.
Yet
despite the lack of interest from Chinese tourists, hoteliers in the UK can't
wait to get into their most profitable season, as this summer's Olympics are
expected to bring a boom to British hotels.
According
to consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, occupancy rates for London hotels in
2012 are expected to reach almost 84 per cent, the best since the 1970s.
Occupancy outside London is expected to reach 72 per cent, the highest ever.
Wu
Yiwen, Shanghai-based public relation manager for Northern England's Yorkshire
tourism bureau, joked that she replaced her promotional slogan this year with
"stay in Yorkshire for the London Olympics".
"It
takes you about three hours of driving from Yorkshire to London, but it (the
hotel rate in Yorkshire) is much cheaper. And I'm telling you many people are
doing that," she said.
Zhao
Huanyan, an analyst with Hotelsolution Consulting based in Shenzhen, said
hoteliers in two-thirds of the UK's tourist destinations raised their room
rates.
"One
four-star hotel east of London increased its rate from $300 to $1,600 simply
because it's close to the Olympic venue. That's much more than the increase in
Shanghai's Expo hotel boom."
Thanks
to the Olympics, Zhao said the UK is expecting an additional 123 million pounds
($194 million) from hotel revenues for 2012 compared with last year.
Shi
Yingying
China
Daily
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