Beijing hotels less than 50% booked three weeks before the Olympics

BEIJING (Reuters) - Beijing officials on Tuesday sought to downplay worries about low hotel reservations for next month's Olympics, insisting the numbers were in line with expectations and refusing to draw a link with new visa controls.

Xiong Yumei, deputy head of the Beijing Tourism Administration, told a news conference that more than half the rooms in four-star hotels in Beijing over the Olympic period were still available, though bookings were edging up slowly.

"This is what we expected," she said. "There are still quite a lot of people from other cities and provinces who have tickets but have not yet booked rooms. When August comes, the occupancy rate will be much higher than the present booking rate."

Over the same period last year, four-star hotels had booking rates of close to 70 percent, but there are now 20 more hotels competing for business than last year in Beijing, Xiong added.

"Beijing is doing quite well for accommodation resources," she said.

Yet just a few weeks ago, Xiong's boss Zhang Huiguang implied that there was a different reason for low hotel bookings -- the storm of bad publicity surrounding China in the run-up to the Games, potentially putting off visitors.

Since the start of this year, southern China has been hit by freak freezing weather, which cut power to millions, there has been violent unrest in Tibetan areas, anti-Chinese protests on the international leg of the Olympic torch relay and a huge earthquake in Sichuan.

There have also been warnings from Interpol that terrorists may target the Games, and the government has claimed to have broken up a plot by ethnic Uighurs from China's restive far western region of Xinjiang to attack the Olympics. 

"I think maybe there will be some psychological effect on some foreign tourists who don't understand the situation," Zhang said in late May.

And despite China's public message that it welcomes all to the Olympics, the government has significantly tightened controls on visas in the run-up to the event, procedures it says are normal for an Olympic host city and needed for security.

Sun Weide, a spokesman for the Beijing Olympic organizers, denied that the new visa regime was responsible for low hotel bookings.

"The visa policy is very clear -- it's to guarantee the security of competitors over the Olympics period ... We will take whatever steps are necessary to ensure a peaceful Games," Sun said.

"We welcome foreign friends from all over the world to come to Beijing to compete in and watch the Games, and continue to take measures to provide convenience in applying for visas," he added.

Beijing expects to play host to between 450,000 and 500,000 overseas visitors during the August Olympics, only marginally up from the 420,000 who came in the same period last year, though August, which can be searingly hot, is normally a low tourist season.