Culture
The London Olympics brought many losses to various segments of the city's business. The games did not attract as many fans as expected, moreover, they scared off thousands of “unsportsmanlike” tourists, whose money Londoners were counting on. Owners of hotels, retailers, as well as numerous museums and other cultural institutions are suffering losses.
According to The Financial Times, more than 100,000 foreign tourists came to watch the London Olympics. This is more than at previous games, but sports tourists are not focused on shopping in London and spend much less money than regular tourists. Analysts say that 90 per cent of Olympic tourists are not planning major purchases in the British capital.
By the way, it seems that arenas and stands will also not be sold out, as more than 200,000 football tickets and 100,000 to 120,000 tickets to other events are still available at the moment. Tickets are sold on the LOCOG website, however, for some reason they are in no hurry to buy them. There is a new practice of selling tickets to those who have changed their mind about going to an event to those who want to be there. Such tickets are sold for ridiculous sums, for example, 300 people watched handball competitions at a price of five pounds for an adult ticket and one pound for a child ticket.
During this period, non-Olympic London is usually visited by about 300,000 tourists. They spend money in lots of shops, theaters, hotels, and museums. Currently, their number has fallen sharply precisely because of the expected discomfort in London in connection with the Olympics.
“In August, 300,000 foreign tourists and 800,000 British tourists come to London. These people seem to have stayed on the sidelines. They were replaced by 500,000 people who purchased tickets to the Olympic Games. Many of them are Londoners and tourists who have come to the metropolis to watch sporting events. They are not interested in seeing local attractions, because they did not come here to shop, eat or enjoy beauty,” says the representative Tom Jenkins of the European Association of Tour Operators.
Theaters complain about a significant drop in revenues, and last week was marked as the worst box office week of the whole year. According to Nick Burns, head of the Nimax theater group, this summer, ticket sales to theaters located in the West End fell by a third.
“As a rule, tourists walk around the city center, but today's tourists have come to watch the competitions. People are afraid to talk about transport problems, although in fact, everything works great and there is absolutely nothing to be afraid of,” he continued. Hotels in the British capital also complain about losses, prices were raised before the start of the 2012 Olympic Games, in June, the cost of living increased by ten percent, to about 226 euros, with At the start of the competition, hotel services rose by another 36 percent to 350 euros per night.
Obviously, hotel owners were quick to raise prices, as it turned out that hotels had a lot of vacant rooms during the games. Seeing the bleak prospects and overestimating the expected flow of tourists during the Olympics, British hotel and tourism owners took a step back, even reducing prices by about a quarter.
Until recently, 4-star hotel owners were asking £300-400 per room per night. Reality has put everything in its place and tempered the appetites of hotel owners. You can now spend the night for £109-150. 2-star hotels are now ready to let guests in for £50 per person per night, compared to £200 on the eve of the Olympics.
Nick Palau, director of the Golden Tour travel agency, complained to The Financial Times that the Olympics undermined the hotel business. “We used to sell hotel rooms at inflated prices, but back in May, tour operators actually stopped selling. Our profit during this period fell by 20 percent,” he says.
In general, according to the calculations of business experts, the hotel and sightseeing business lost 20 and 35 percent of the planned profit. Only the owners of various establishments in the Olympic Park area have achieved the expected results.
Large retail chains with facilities in central London also noted a decrease in the number of customers. It was expected that the number of customers in West End stores this summer was expected to reach 25 million. The number of customers fell significantly just before the start of the Olympics, when 10 percent fewer people visited West End stores than usual during this period of the year.