The Olympics are coming soon, and with them, athletes and the public from all over the world, exploits and… a rather outrageous rise in the price of accommodation rentals. If the renters on Airbnb are singled out, the hotels are not doing any better on their side.
Individuals are not the only ones wishing to maximize their earnings during this international event. Professionals in the hotel sector naturally intend to take advantage of this financial windfall brought by the influx of tourists that the 2024 Olympic Games will attract. First, the government pointed the finger at the owners on the Airbnb platform. However, according to a comparative analysis of the newspaper The Parisianwe cannot say that the pricing policies practiced by hotels are always virtuous.
Skyrocketing prices
As the government relentlessly hunts down abusive landlords on Airbnb, The Parisian looks at another aspect of the housing sector. His small comparative study mainly concerned hotels located in Paris or Île-de-France, but provincial hotels are also part of the lot. On average, the prices of double rooms are multiplied by 6.6 between August 2023 and the period of the Games. Big increase all the same.
The palme d’or for the increase goes to the Hotel Paris Vaugirard, a three-star hotel located at Porte de Versailles in the 15the borough. A night booked in August 2023 costs 90 euros. For the same reservation, it will take 1,363 euros next summer, an increase of 1,514%! The increase in the rates of the other hotels concerned by the study is also counted in the hundreds of %.
Hoteliers vs. Airbnb
The prices of rentals such as Airbnb or other competitors are also exploding, which provokes strong criticism. The hotels, for their part, assume and justify their price increases by claiming to apply the “yield management” policy. In short, it is a technique from marketing that consists of anticipating customer behavior with the aim of maximizing profits over a given period.
The Accor group, for example, official partner of the Olympic Games, has ensured that a third of its 650 establishments offer room rentals at fixed prices. Conversely, the establishments of the Mercure and Ibis groups do not seem to offer ceilings and have multiplied their prices by 5 for the occasion.
On the side of the Ministry of Tourism, it is planned to have hoteliers sign a charter of commitment in the fall. Those who sign will be forced to report when they see a price that is too unreasonable on booking sites like Booking.com. For the moment, however, nothing indicates that this charter will be mandatory to sign. It is therefore not certain that this is enough to curb these abuses.
Source : The Parisian
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