Plenty of Beijing hotel rooms--if you haggle

By Liu Zhen

BEIJING (Reuters) - Reports of Beijing hotels ramping up prices for next year's Olympic Games are based on a misunderstanding of Chinese negotiating techniques, an official said on Tuesday.

Local media reports in the first half of this year said hotels in the Chinese capital were charging up to 10 times their usual rates for next August.

"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 on Tuesday.

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

Xiang said the exorbitant rates are mainly a sales strategy of the hotels and reasonable deals were available if buyers kept haggling.

"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.

"The Chinese way of dealing with something we're not sure about is to wait and see, especially when many hotel owners thought they could get a better price next year."

But city officials and Olympics organisers contributed to the rush for hotel rooms earlier this year by urging visitors to book early in order to guarantee a room.