The Olympics start Friday with the opening ceremony, with many eager enthusiasts reserving hotels as much as a year in advance or more for the games. With just a few hours left before the games begin, most people would believe that it would be nearly impossible to get a sweet last-minute hotel room booked in London but according to Hotels.com room rates have fallen 25 percent from their highs about a month ago. Some London hotels are as much as 40 percent off their regular room rates now, during the Olympic period.
The price lowering are in part due to the last rounds of rooms being release by the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (LOGOC) which occurred in June.
The committee had reserved 40,000 of the city's 140,000 rooms and now know how full they will be during the Olympics. Nigel Pocklington, CMO of Hotels.com said to ABC News, "With a big event, of course, the hotels are going to try and make big yields."
Pocklington noted that the hotels will still be very full and hotels are usually at about an 85 percent occupancy and should be about 90 percent for the games. Hotel vacancies could also be in part because of the growth in vacation rentals, with many people opting to rent a house or apartment while on vacation instead of going the typical hotel route.
In ABC News research, they found that traveling to the games during the weekend of August 4 were the least expensive. Hotels.com confirmed that the majority of searches for traveling to London were for the beginning of the games.
ABC News researched the cheapest time to travel to the Games and found that the middle weekend (Aug. 4) and the second week were the least expensive. Hotels.com said the majority of searches for travel to London were for the dates of the opening ceremonies and the start of the events.
