Beijing Ready to Entertain

Beijing's tourism industry is prepared to entertain guests for the upcoming Olympic Games, said Xiong Yumei, deputy director general of the Beijing Tourism Bureau.

"Beijing's tourism industry is ready. We will muster our utmost passion and try our best to provide quality services for friends from all over the world," said Xiong at a press conference held at the Main Press Center on July 15.

Beijing has 5,790 accommodation venues, with 339,000 rooms and 665,000 beds. Among them, there are 816 star-rated hotels and 4,978 privately owned hotels.

Reservation rates for five-star hotels are 78.1 percent and that for five-star hotels 47.6 percent. In comparison, reservation rates for five-star and four-star hotels were 69 percent during the same period last year.

This year, Beijing has an additional 20 four-star hotels as well as eight to 10 more five-star hotels.

"We have sufficient accommodation resources," said Xiong.

Though more than half the rooms in four-star hotels are still available, the numbers were in line with expectations, said Xiong.

"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."

But there have been rumors linking the Chinese government's new visa controls to low hotel reservations. Sun Weide, a spokesman for the Beijing Olympic organizers, denied that the new visa regulations were 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.

In the meantime, room rates have decreased. Room rates of four-star hotels fell 42 yuan from 2,226 yuan per night in late March to 2,185 yuan per night in late May. Room rates of three-star hotels fell 33 yuan from 1,556 yuan per night to 1,523 yuan per night over the same period.

For Olympic homestays, the Beijing Tourism Bureau has set up a floating range from $60 (400 yuan) to $80 (540 yuan) per room per night.

In anticipation of a surge of visitors, particularly overseas visitors, during the Games, Beijing has also bettered its information services.

Fifty-six information booths have been set up in key road blocks and sightseeing spots. More than 220,000 copies of Beijing maps have also been placed at the T1, T2 and T3 aviation towers of Beijing International Airport.

The Beijing Games' multi-language hotline, 12308, will provide information to tourists in English, French, Japanese and Chinese, including a number of Chinese dialects. The tourist hotline for the city, 12301, will also answer visitors' complaints and inquiries around the clock.

The Beijing Tourism Administration's Web site has also been improved to provide tourist information in six languages, including French, Spanish, Japanese and Arabic.

Beijing has standardized the French and English translations of menus of Chinese dishes and distributed the translated versions to hotels, sightseeing spots and travel agencies.

Beijing is expected to play host to between 450,000 and 500,000 overseas visitors during the August Olympics.