Sydney hotels hoping for $900 a day
6 June 1998Some Sydney hotels have been quoting prices of more than $900 a night for three-star accommodation, with meal packages of more than $300 a day, during the Olympics, international Olympic officials heard in Seville, Spain, yesterday.
Sydney officials in Seville expressed concern at reports of price increases by hotels outside the price-capping agreements which cover 80 per cent of the quality hotel accommodation in Sydney during the Games.
The high price of Sydney hotels was also attacked by Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC) officials in Seville who claimed they had moved their proposed conference in 2000 from Sydney to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, because of hotel costs.
The ANOC president, Mr Mario Vazquez Rana, told a press conference last night that hotel prices of up to $400 a night in early 2000 had prompted the association to drop its plans to have its next conference in Sydney - even though it would be only months before the Games.
In the ANOC meeting yesterday the secretary-general of the Hungarian Olympic Committee, Mr Thomas Ajan, said he had been told by a "very distinguished gentleman from the board of the NSW Hotels Association" that hotel prices for three-star accommodation in Sydney were being quoted at $900 a night.
He said breakfast pricesof $73 were being quoted and lunch and dinner prices of$123 each.
But the chief executive of the Australian Hotels Association, Mr David Charles, dismissed Mr Ajan's accusations as "fantasy" and "a figment of his imagination", insisting that Mr Ajan had spoken to no-one from the AHA and that there was no such body as the NSW Hotels Association.
He said only a handful of hotels were not part of an agreement with SOCOG toprovide rooms for the Games, and that there was no evidence any of them were demanding such prices.
He said hotels would charge the "rack rate" or premium rate during the Games, which he estimated would be $500 to $600 a night for five-star rooms and $320 to $350 for three stars.
Mr Ajan, also head of the International Weightlifting Federation, said the prices he had been quoted were outside the Sydney contract with the International Olympic Committee. He urged Sydney organisers to rectify the situation.
The figures are considerably higher than hotel rates of $327 a night guaranteed by SOCOG for representatives of national Olympic committees in Sydney for the Games, and rates of $262 to $524 for some of their guests and sponsors.
SOCOG's deputy chief executive, Mr Jim Sloman, conceded there was a problem. He blamed competition between international travel agents appointed to handle Sydney Olympic bookings for pushing up room prices in those hotels outside the official pricing agreement.
"People have been coming in [trying to sign up] the 20 per cent of hotel rooms that we don't occupy," he told the meeting.
Speaking in Seville yesterday, the Australian Olympic Committee president, Mr John Coates, who is also a vice-president of SOCOG, stressed that the prices mentioned were for hotels outside the official hotels being signed up by SOCOG.
