Olympian efforts will be needed to attract sports tourists in future

The news that hotel bookings for the duration of the 2012 London Olympics are down 30% should evoke sighs of relief in certain quarters. Londoners, increasingly worried about the invasion of the pavement snatchers in the form of sports enthusiasts, will now be less chary about staying put during those crucial weeks of peak summer migrations.

Those who had made their exodus plans prompted by ominous warnings about London’s creaky infrastructure collapsing under the weight of Olympic hordes in July-August, will be heartened that greedy four-fold hikes in hotel room prices have converted the anticipated shortfall into a probable surplus.

The corresponding rise in bookings for nearby European cities like Paris and Barcelona should convince Londoners to stay where they are — or, at the very most, in those unexpectedly empty hotel rooms — and watch all the Olympic action in cool comfort.

Those who wanted to come to London for some hoopla and spectacle may well have had their fill during the just-concluded four-day diamond jubilee celebrations of Queen Elizabeth anyway.

The embarrassingly low tourist inflow during the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi can now be cited as part of a worldwide trend. Add to that the similar data of lowered Olympic-time visitor inflows in Barcelona, Beijing and Sydney, the assertion would be hard to deny.

Everything can now be blamed squarely on the increasing competence of sporting event telecasts and the crystal-clear lure of HD images on television or computer screen.

Taken together, they ensure the best seats in the house minus the hassle of visas, flights, congested airports, hotels, queues and opportunistic pricing. Unless something is done, future Olympic venues may factor out tourists altogether.