Surprise -- Hotels Still Available

Good news for travelers who want to go to Beijing during the Olympics in August but who don’t have reservations – there are still plenty of hotel rooms, all the way down to two-star hotels. Five-star hotels still have a 23% vacancy rate, and 56% of four-star hotels remain unbooked, according to Tourism Bureau Director Zhang Huigang (whom some might remember as the Chinese capital’s anti-spitting czar when he headed Beijing’s ethics office). The occupancy rates of two- and three-star hotels are even lower, possibly because of China’s stricter visa policies, as noted in previous posts.