There have been a couple of stories published recently saying that it is still possible to get a hotel room for the Beijing Olympics at a reasonable price. Seventy per cent of the top 122 hotels in Beijing were booked by the Beijing Organizing committee for Olympic officials, media and sponsors.

Organizers are expecting 500,000 foreigners to visit Beijing for the Olympics and more than one million domestic visitors to the capital.

“It is a game between the hotel owners and the market,” Penny Xiang, deputy director of Games Services for Beijing Organising Committee (BOCOG), told reporters.

“The reason is that there were many enquiries at that time, which released a signal that the market demand was extremely high,” she added.

“As far as I know there are not many hotels that have actually signed contracts with clients, and those that have signed contracts are actually not at very high price,” she said.

Read more: Plenty of Beijing hotel rooms, if you haggle: official