A year is a long time when it comes to Olympic preparations. I remember last year reading how some hotels were going to charge 10 times their usual rates during the Beijing Olympics and now I am reading reports of hotels actually slashing their rates to get customers.

Fan Runjun, of the Chinese travel website Ctrip.com, said many two-star to four-star hotels had reduced their prices by between 10 per cent and 20 per cent compared with May and June.

Some had slashed rates by as much as 30 per cent, said Mr Fan, whose site lists about 500 hotels in its English-language section.

Tourism was actually down 19.9 per cent from last year in June.

Read more: Beijing hotels slash prices as world shuns Olympics