Thousands of hotel nights have been canceled by the organizers of the 2024 Olympic Games from Paris to Lille, which is to host part of the basketball and handball events, the organizing committee said on Monday, confirming information from the Voice North.
These cancellations of hotel nights come several weeks after the one that hit the hotels in Châteauroux, the city which will host the shooting events. “Seven months before the Games, we have released rooms in Lille which we estimate can (still) be reserved between now and the start of the competitions, respecting the terms of the contract,” the organizers confirmed to AFP , without specifying the number of nights concerned.
“It was not a good surprise,” Boris Delecroix, president of the Lille-Métropole hotel club, which brings together 90 hotels, regretted to AFP. He estimated that these cancellations represented “around 2,000 nights per day over ten days.” More than fifty handball and basketball matches are scheduled at the Stade Pierre-Mauroy during the Olympic Games (July 26-August 11).
“It’s not great news.”
“We are quite optimistic with this period of the Olympics which is going to be busy. We are used to hosting major sporting events in Lille, we are experienced in this exercise. We remain confident. We are used to major cancellations in upstream”, added Boris Delecroix.
“We are quite close to Paris too, and some will perhaps prefer to stay in Lille, we remain in relatively accessible price ranges. But we are not going to hide, this is not excellent news”, a- he concluded. The organizers also mentioned the “proximity” between Paris and Lille to justify this “relaxation”. An Olympic village based at the Villeneuve-d’Ascq Stadium, with nearly 500 rooms, must be delivered between the end of March and May to be able to accommodate the athletes.