« The Obama tax plan | Main | Bold claims about time asymmetry »
China fact of the day
"Business is worse than at this time last year," said a receptionist at a 22-room hotel in Beijing's Chongwen district, where rooms cost $28 a night. "It's the season for traveling and last year the hotel was full. The Olympics should have brought business to Beijing, but the reality is too far from the expectation."
Many of the events are not very crowded, so:
To remedy the problem, officials are busing in teams of state-trained "cheer squads" identifiable by their bright yellow T-shirts to help fill the empty seats and improve the atmosphere.
Here is the story.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on August 13, 2008 at 09:13 AM in Sports | Permalink
Comments
If you want more business execs to book hotel rooms in China, you'll have to put me on the bill. And on the mattress. Stark naked.
Posted by: KinkyKathy at Aug 13, 2008 9:42:09 AM
now very crowded or not very crowded?
Posted by: Matt at Aug 13, 2008 9:52:40 AM
Beijing is a crowded city, let alone during the Olympics, which the government hyped. For non-Olympic tourists, it's the Yogi Berra scenario: nobody goes there because it's too crowded. On top of that hotels raised prices, which contributes to the idea of high demand, in addition to detering tourists on a budget.
Posted by: 8 at Aug 13, 2008 10:28:38 AM
"Chinese organizers provided large state-run enterprises with blocks of tickets, particularly to non-marquee events, to distribute to workers. Many of those employees may simply be deciding it is not worth the hassle to use them."
Posted by: Sune at Aug 13, 2008 11:27:25 AM
Few people from out of town went to the 1984 LA Olympics either -- it was widely assumed at the time that smog, terrorism, traffic jams, and earthquakes would lay waste to LA, none of which happened. In contrast to Beijing, however, local Southern Californians turned out in vast numbers for most events, making that Olympics extremely profitable.
Posted by: Steve Sailer at Aug 13, 2008 5:17:06 PM
I have heard that China didn't want anyh foreigners who didn't have tickets to the olympics to be in the city because they might be some sort of protester or otherwise cause trouble. My housemate's wife had gone to visit a month ago and she had to have surgery and had a hard time getting her visa extended to cover the time necessary for surgery and didn't really have enough recovery time before she had to leave.
Posted by: sort_of_knowledgeable at Aug 13, 2008 8:31:01 PM
