London 2012 Olympics Tickets and Tours: Organisers Say Security Won't Suffer Despite Cuts

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As Spyns' clients gear up for the London 2012 Summer Olympics, security and the terrorist threat remain on the main concerns for travel to Europe. With recent budget cuts, London 2012 organisers faced questions about inadequate funding for policing and security. In reply, London 2012 Olympic chiefs said on Tuesday they were confident a safe Games could be delivered despite the prospect of a 20 percent cut in its security budget.

The coalition government has made cuts across most departments to tackle a record peacetime budget deficit approaching 11 percent of national output. Paul Deighton, chief executive of LOCOG, responsible for staging the Games, said the revised figure was the result of getting into the "nitty gritty" of what was needed. "They are very focused on what the level of risk is and as a consequence will put in place the police support, the counter espionage support," he said. "All the work that goes on will be in response to their perception of the level of threat and what's needed to make it a safe and secure Games, and that is the driver." He said he was confident risks were being covered, despite not being party to all intelligence.

When the former Labour government set out its Olympic Safety and Security Strategy, experts suggested anti-terrorism measures could push the bill toward 1.5 billion pounds. The security budget for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics rose five times above its bid estimate. London's original 600 million pound figure would still be available if required, Herbert said. A further 280 million pounds was earmarked for LOCOG to secure venues across the country, taken from the overall 9.3 billion pound Games budget.

Spyns is an active travel company based in Whistler, BC (Canada). For more information about Spyns and our package tours to the 2012 London Summer Olympic Games, including London Olympics hotels, London 2012 tickets, and summer games VIP access, please visit our websites http://www.london2012-tours.com/ and http://www.london-tours-2012.com/ or call us toll-free at 1.888.825.4720.

London 2012 Olympics Tickets and Tours: Athletes Demand Legacy for Stadium

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Artist's rendering of stadium once completed.

As Spyns clients gear up for the 2012 summer games in London, a mild controversy is building over plans for the Olympic Stadium.

Kelly Holmes and Daley Thompson are among a group of UK Olympians urging authorities to keep the Olympic Stadium running track after the 2012 Games. Plans by Premier League club Tottenham to relocate to the stadium would result in the running track being removed. "We urge the decision makers to ensure the track remains post 2012," the group wrote in an open letter. "[It would] bring to life a sporting promise made to a whole community for generations to come."


Tottenham's proposal has been submitted in collaboration with AEG, who manage the O2 Arena, and, together with West Ham United's plan, is one of two bids being considered by the Olympic Park Legacy Company (OPLC), the organisation responsible for the long-term management of the Stratford site. It would be unacceptable for the stadium to lose the track and effectively become an Olympic Stadium with NO Olympic connection or legacy


The Spurs proposal has been deemed "completely unacceptable" by UK Athletics (UKA) because their plans for an 80,000-seat stadium would involve ripping up the athletics track. That would break the original pledge for a world-class athletics venue after the 2012 Games. West Ham, however, want to create a 60,000-capacity arena for football, athletics, concerts and community use in a collaboration with Newham Council, a bid endorsed by UKA. Former Olympians Alan Wells, Steve Cram, Steve Backley, Roger Black, Jamie Baulch, Lynn Davies, Brendan Foster, Katharine Merry, David Moorcroft, Alan Pascoe, Wendy Sly, Ian Stewart and the Paralympian Tanni Grey-Thompson, added their weight to urge the OPLC to honour the 2005 pledge of "an athletics legacy in the form of a world-class stadium".


They wrote: "Here was a stadium that would see young athletes competing for an English schools title run on the same track as Usain Bolt, where Premiership footballers could play whilst club athletes train. "Here was somewhere that could play host to Twenty20 cricket one week and a pop concert the next. The whole idea of an Olympic legacy is that something tangible is left for the sport afterwards


"There is no doubt a legacy of bricks and mortar can work. Look to the Velodrome in Manchester, a true legacy of the 2002 Commonwealth Games that is paying dividends every time British cyclists compete on the world stage. "As Olympians we are all ardent sports fans and that is why we believe the Olympic legacy HAS to be the Olympic Stadium complete with track. "It would be unacceptable for the stadium to lose the track and effectively become an Olympic Stadium with NO Olympic connection or legacy." BBC commentator Cram, a silver medallist in the 1500m at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, said the Stratford stadium could host major international athletics meetings in the future. "If you are going to have a stadium of that size it needs to be used well, not only as a national centre for UK athletics but also to host major athletics events in the future," he told BBC Radio 5 live.


"While Britain has pulled out for bidding for the 2015 World Championships, there is an intention to bid for the 2017 Worlds - and then there are the future Europeans and Commonwealth Games too. "The whole idea of an Olympic legacy is that something tangible is left for the sport afterwards." However, London 2012 chairman Lord Coe told a Culture, Media and Sport committee on Tuesday that the organising committee is "not party" to the bids process by either Tottenham or West Ham. "I'm loath to get into this discussion," said Coe, who is also vice-president of the International Association of Athletics Federations. "It is not up to us. The OPLC are conducting the process of the stadium along the recognisable lines that commitments have been made on the basis of future use." Asked whether it would be a shame if the venue were to be pulled down, Coe replied: "I would agree with you."

Spyns is an active travel company based in Whistler, BC (Canada). For more information about Spyns and our package tours to the 2012 London Summer Olympics, including hotels, tickets, and VIP access, please visit our websites http://www.london2012-tours.com/ and http://www.london-tours-2012.com/ or call us toll-free at 1.888.825.4720.

London 2012 Olympics Tickets and Tours: Organisers Want to Avoid "Beijing Ticket Syndrome"

As Spyns gears up for its 2012 Olympics tours, London 2012 organisers are at pains to avoid "Beijing syndrome" for its summer games tickets. All the London 2012 sponsors have been told they must make extra effort to ensure all their guests use their Olympic tickets, so the Games stadiums are as full as possible. Deighton told a House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport committee: “We will talk to sponsors, they have a stake in this too, and there is a reputational risk. "We are saying, ‘Make sure your guests take up the seats, you do have a responsibility to work hard to make sure your guest sits in that seat’.” Sponsors, combined with broadcasters, have access to 10 per cent of the total 8.8 million Olympic tickets available.


Deighton also said the sale of the Paralympic tickets would take place after the Olympic tickets go on sale in March, 2011. He said this was to ensure they “had their moment in the sun”. But it also gives organisers some breathing space to refine ticket prices and marketing strategies depending on the success of the Olympic sales. Locog has budgeted to raise £500 million from the Olympic and Paralympic tickets, a huge chunk of its £2.15 billion operating budget.  Deighton was upbeat about the budget overall and said another key element – the marketing budget of £600-700 million – was on track.


“We are trending towards the top end of that range and I expect we will reach £700 million at the end of March 2011,” he said. "We are very confident of getting to the top end of the range.” Deighton confirmed that the Locog budget would not be tabled at the end of the financial year in March 2012, but after the Paralympics had finished in September 2012 so that the organisers could focus solely on delivering the Games rather than accounting. He said this 18-month accounting period had received government approval. “We took a balanced assemessment and everyone accepted this was the best way to go,” Deighton said.

Meanwhile the Olympic Delivery Authority said it would shortly reveal a shortlist of candidates interested in long-term investment in the athletes’ village. ODA chief executive David Higgins said there was significant corporate interest in the athletes village apartments, which will be without kitchens when used by the athletes so that the residences can accommodate an extra bedroom during the Games.

Spyns is an active travel company based in Whistler, BC (Canada). For more information about Spyns and our tours to the 2012 London Summer Olympics, please visit our websites http://www.london2012-tours.com/ and http://www.london-tours-2012.com/ or call us toll-free at 1.888.825.4720.

London 2012 Olympics Tickets and Tours: Lee River Rafting Centre Opens

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The Princess Royal has unveiled the Lee Valley White Water Centre, the first brand new venue for the London 2012 Olympic Games to be completed. The £31m project, which incorporates the 2012 Olympic slalom canoe course, was finished on schedule and will be open to the public from April 2011. Britain's top canoeists have exclusive use of the facilities until that time.


"I've been waiting for this course for such a long time - it's absolutely brilliant," said GB's Richard Hounslow. Until now, World bronze medallist Hounslow and his British team-mates had trained at Nottingham's Holme Pierrepont course. We now have in Britain the best white water stadium in the world. But the entire squad will now move from Nottingham to Hertfordshire and base themselves at Lee Valley ahead of London 2012, offering what could prove a crucial home advantage.

"Our programme has chosen to relocate and, personally, I think that's a brilliant idea," said Hounslow. "To train here day in, day out, will be so good for us. "After April [once the course opens to the public] other international teams can relocate here if they want to, but I can't see it happening, so for us it'll be a really big advantage." The venue, near Waltham Cross, will be operated by the Lee Valley Regional Park Authority and will offer the public rafting and canoeing facilities, on both the main 300m Olympic course and a separate 160m intermediate run. Temporary stands will allow up to 12,000 spectators to watch the Olympic events in 2012, with hopes high for a British medal after David Florence won silver at the Beijing Games in 2008.


The £31m course was completed in just under 18 months. "The completion of the White Water Centre - on budget and over 18 months before the Games - is a huge milestone," said John Armitt, chairman of the Olympic Delivery Authority. "As the first brand new 2012 venue we have finished, it is a clear sign of the early legacy the Games are already delivering." Construction at the site began in July 2009 and has involved more than 150 workers. The course uses enough material in its banks, obstacles and venue landscaping to fill the Royal Albert Hall, while canoeists must navigate a drop in height of 5.5m from start to finish.

"The biggest thing about the course is the amount you can change it," Hounslow told BBC Sport. "There's a new system which means you can put obstacles wherever you want - you don't want to build a course out of concrete and then find something doesn't quite work. "Here, we can tweak things until we have the perfect configuration. And it's just fun. It's a little bit cold in this temperature, but it's great fun. In 25 years it will still be a very good course."


British Canoe Union chief executive Paul Owen said: "We now have in Britain the best white water stadium in the world. "We look forward to providing a sensational event for the 2012 Olympic Games in a venue with a lasting legacy." Weymouth - where the sailing events will take place - was the first venue to be completed after London won its Olympic bid, but work largely involved enhancing pre-existing facilities - whereas Lee Valley is an entirely new development.


Olympic organisers expect the velodrome to be the next completed venue, early in 2011, followed by the Olympic Stadium.

Spyns is an active travel company based in Whistler, BC (Canada). For more information about Spyns and our tours to the 2012 London Summer Olympics, please visit our websites http://www.london2012-tours.com/ and http://www.london-tours-2012.com/ or call us toll-free at 1.888.825.4720.

London 2012 Summer Olympics Tickets & Tours: International Olympic Committee's Shopping List Revealed

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As Spyns gears up to launch is London 2012 Summer Games website, Londoners are starting to resent the growing list of demands by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Entire hotels have been reserved for IOC fart catchers, the Union Jack must be smaller than the Olympic Flag and, of particular insult, French will be the official language of the London 2012 games.

In a WikiLeaks world, Britain's document cache is just as long, just as embarrassing to the UK, and just as closely held as the collected thoughts of the U.S. diplomatic corps: it is the complete, ­contractually binding and previously ­confidential set of demands made by the 115-member International Olympic ­Committee (IOC) on poor old London for the 2012 Olympic Games.

Like the WikiLeaks, the Olympics leak is by turns creepy and amusing. And it is just as revealing in its detail. Londoners already knew, for instance, about the politburo nature of the IOC. What Brits did not know is that London is, according to these contracts, required to provide the IOC and the ‘Olympic Family’ (including the Committee members, staff and officials) with 40,000 hotel-room bookings for the entire duration of the Games.


This includes 1,800 four and five-star hotel rooms for the IOC elite. Six Park Lane hotels have been booked out for the ­duration of the Games, including the Dorchester, the Grosvenor and the Hilton. The 40,000-room booking does not, of course, include accommodation for the competitors themselves — they are having an Olympic Village built for them at a cost to taxpayer of £325 million. Nor is any accommodation being reserved for spectators. On the evidence of the documents, visitors to the Games will probably find that any hotel within a 50-mile radius of London is already fully booked by the third assistant director of the Togolese handball federation and his extensive support staff.


We knew the IOC was being given 250 miles of so-called ‘Zil’ lanes — named after the old Soviet limousines that enjoyed traffic-free passage. They will stretch from London to Weymouth, where the sailing games are being held. It now emerges that there will also be 500 air-conditioned limos whose drivers must wear hats and uniforms. The IOC does love its little details. The hat stipulation is one of literally hundreds of examples of its micro-management. ­London must provide a ‘dance café’ in the Olympic Village, so that the ­athletes can boogie together.


A flower shop is also required, which the IOC insists ‘should ­provide a range of flowers and gifts for customers in the Olympic ­Village’. British taxpayers will be relieved to know that ‘a balloon rental service is optional’. The guidance given by the Olympocrats can be bewildering — it offers pages of information about the employment of housekeepers for the athletes, for example. ‘It is recommended that the same housekeeping staff perform their duties for the same teams daily’, because this will ‘build relationships and trust’, ‘give confidence’ and ‘maintain standards’. Making the bed is not enough.


These IOC edicts are called the ‘Olympic technical manuals’. They are attached to the contract signed by the then Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, when we won the right to host the Games in July 2005.  The contract itself was later made public, but for years London 2012 and City Hall refused to publish the manuals, furiously resisting Freedom of Information requests on the grounds that the ‘confidence of the IOC’ must not be breached. It took two years of campaigning by Paul Charman, a strikingly determined east Londoner, for the documents to come to light.  The real reason, perhaps, for this sensitivity is not because of the hats, the dance cafés or any of the other petty embarrassments. It is because the documents show that the British authorities have ­cravenly agreed to let the IOC ­create what is, in effect, a state within a state.


During the Games, normal ­London life, including ordinary commerce and the right to basic freedoms, must be subordinated to the five-ring circus that is the Olympic ‘brand protection’ policy. The IOC is paranoid about what it calls ‘ambush marketing’, which it claims is a ‘serious potential threat to the Olympic Movement’ even if it admits that it has, in fact, ‘not been a significant problem in the past’.  Ambush marketing, in the Olympocrats’ eyes, appears to be any branding or promotion for an organisation which has not paid large amounts of money to the Olympics organisers.


Candidate cities, the manuals say, ‘are required to obtain control of all billboard advertising, city transport advertising, airport advertising etc for the duration of the Games and the month preceding it to support the marketing ­programme’. The cost of hiring these billboards alone will surely be enormous. Customs officers and police must ‘co-operate’ in taking action against unapproved Olympics advertising and the ­confiscation of non-official goods. So in other words, police officers may be diverted from catching criminals to enforcing the commercial interests of the IOC. ­Customs officers, instead of searching for heroin and child pornography, may end up targeting fake Olympics T-shirts.


Spectators at the Games ‘must not wear clothes or accessories with commercial messages other than the manufacturers’ brand name’. So, for instance, any ten-year-old boy who is foolish enough to wear his Manchester United ­replica shirt, emblazoned with the commercial logo of the team’s sponsor Aon, could be forced to remove it or be denied admission to the Games.
No ‘athlete or other participant’ at the Games can wear any ­clothing on which the manufacturer’s name takes up more than 10 per cent of the surface area, or 12 square centimetres. No journalist covering the Games is allowed any ‘signage of any kind’, even for his or her own publication — on ‘camera bags, hats or other garments’.


The toughest restrictions apply inside and immediately around the Olympics venues (if you’re a newsagent next to, say, Greenwich Park with a Pepsi sign on your shopfront, heaven help you). But there are also quite serious restrictions in so-called ‘Level 4’ areas — that is, the whole of the rest of the city — in which the organisers of the London Games ‘must attempt to exert as much control over advertising as possible’.  Brand protection teams’ will, according to the manuals, ‘conduct surveillance . . . in the [host] city’. They must ‘attempt to confiscate any infringing ambush material whether inside or outside the venue’.


So much for the idea that it was just the police that had search-and-seizure powers on the streets of London. Some of the teams will be accompanied by ‘an attorney, in case it becomes necessary to serve any court documents’. And they ‘must have a police officer within the team or on call within range to assist if necessary in the enforcement of the orders’. Here, things become even more grandiose. There is even, according to the documents, an ‘airspace plan’ for London 2012, ‘to prohibit any [non-sponsored] presence within the airspace above Olympic venues, and in the ­surrounding areas within the host city’. However, even the IOC has the grace to admit that ‘there may be obstacles to carrying out airspace requirements completely. For example, it may be impossible to alter the regular flight pattern of commercial airlines’.


Long-suffering taxpayers have been given the impression that the Games will put our nation on the global map, but the documents suggest that something rather ­different will happen. In fact, a geographical space off north-west Europe currently occupied by a nation called Britain will, for the duration of the Games, be taken over by an entirely new country. For at every ceremony during London 2012, by contractual requirement, the Olympic flag must be more prominent than the Union flag: ‘Precedence of flags: Olympic Flag, Flag of the Organising ­Committees for the Olympic Games (OCOG) or city, flag of the province, region or canton, national flag,’ the manuals insist.


Her Majesty will doubtless acquiesce to the IOC’s demands for an Olympic ceremony and royal reception on the day before the Games officially open, although it is worth noting that she has little choice. The documents make clear that, as a matter of course, ‘IOC members are presented to the Head of State’, after which they will all watch ‘an artistic programme reflecting local traditions or ­culture’. What a national triumph. Naturally, the costs associated with all of this are not borne purely by the British taxpayer: £1.4 billion of sponsorship has been raised to finance the games, and the IOC will contribute tens of ­millions more.


The trouble is that the burden on the taxpayer has already reached roughly £12 billion. We may be ­paying the piper, but these ­documents show that it is the IOC who is ­calling the tune. In perhaps the most insulting touch of all, London must ‘ensure that billboards and pageantry are displayed throughout the city’.  As well as being in English, ‘such billboards and pageantry shall be in French’ — which is the second language of the IOC. London beat Paris to host the 2012 Olympics, and yet we are required to plaster our capital city with thousands of posters in French. England may still be sore about losing the World Cup last week — but by God, look at the Olympic guidelines and you’ll realise that we dodged a bullet. There really are only so many Zil lanes and smartly dressed chauffeurs a country can put up with.

Spyns is an active travel company based in Whistler, BC (Canada). For more information about Spyns and our tours to the 2012 London Summer Olympics, please visit our websites http://www.london2012-tours.com/ and http://www.london-tours-2012.com/ or call us toll-free at 1.888.825.4720.

London 2012 Olympics Tickets and Tours: Sports & Performing Arts

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An A-list roster from across the arts world, including Mike Leigh, Toni Morrison, Damon Albarn, Cate Blanchett, Rachel Whiteread and Jude Law, will take part in what was today billed as an "extraordinary, once in a lifetime" series of events to coincide with the London Olympics. More than three million people are expected to attend the Cultural Olympiad's London 2012 festival, which if successful, will represent a spectacular turnaround for a project which has been widely derided as a potential flop. David Hockney, asked if he'd like to send a message of support, emailed an artwork from his iPad which included the text "See you in 2012". His Olympics contribution will be a major exhibition at the Royal Academy during the 12-week festival, which will begin in June 2010 – about two months before the sport starts – and run until the end of the Paralympics, which follow the main Games.


Announcing some of the works already commissioned, Cultural Olympiad director Ruth Mackenzie, said: "This is just a small, small taster. We are still 18 months away and we want to hold our fire for when we actually start selling tickets in October 2011. But we are going to tease." So the launch at the Royal Opera House included headlines rather than details. In the visual arts, Rachel Whiteread will be doing "something" in east London, while Martin Creed will be creating a new sound piece, and Olafur Eliasson will be creating an unspecified work. The Nobel-prize winning novelist Toni Morrison is collaborating with the Malian singer Rokia Traoré and the director Peter Sellars on a Desdemona inspired work, while Damon Albarn and his Gorillaz partner Jamie Hewlett will create something new with theatre director Rufus Norris. Regular collaborators, director Deborah Warner and actor Fiona Shaw, will create what is described as "an extraordinary coastal installation".


Ironically, one of the most detailed project synopses came from an artist famous for giving precious little away. Mike Leigh has been co-commissioned by BBC Films and Film4 – normally rivals – to make a short film which will, according to the publicity, be "an Olympic reflection on athletics in general and running in particular, as well as aerobics, karate, football, swimming and Pilates, not to mention taxis and secondhand cars." The accompanying photograph of the Mile End Road in east London may be something of a give away to its setting. Not everyone will have noticed, but the Cultural Olympiad, which has £83m at its disposal, has been going on, with a series of events around the country, since the Beijing games ended in 2008. It was criticised as too uncoordinated and directionless – 'we don't know who's running it' was the complaint among arts leaders – until the arrival of first Tony Hall as chairman a year ago, and then the experienced arts manager Mackenzie as director.


They soon decided that the Cultural Olympiad needed a big bang finale as its main event, hence the 12-week festival in the runup to the Olympics. Mackenzie said they wanted to create an "extraordinary, once in a lifetime" series of 1,000 events that had excellence at their core. The festival is UK-wide; so choreographer Akram Khan will work with post-graduates from the Northern School of Contemporary Dance in Leeds; the composer James MacMillan will produce a new work to commemorate the anniversary of Coventry Cathedral, 60 years after Benjamin Britten marked its opening with War Requiem; and the film writer Mark Cousins will present a 12-hour history of innovation in cinema that will be screened across the UK.


The festival kicks off at the Ebrington Barracks in Derry with an event devised by the Peace One Day charity which promotes the idea of having one day, 21 September, which is free from conflict – a global day of truce. Jude Law, an ambassador for the charity, will co-produce the event.There will be a lot of Shakespeare in 2012 but full details of the World Shakespeare Festival, co-ordinated by the Royal Shakespeare Company, will be announced next year. A few Bard scraps were though revealed including the fact that the RSC will present plays around the theme of 'What country, friends, is this?' – from Twelfth Night – and there will be specific commissions of Romeo and Juliet from the Iraqi Theatre Company in Baghdad with the Montagues and Capulets being Sunni and Shia; a Richard III inspired spectacle from Rio de Janeiro's Companhia Bufomecanica; and a reimagined Coriolanus from Mike Pearson and the National Theatre of Wales.


The big question was whether the organisers of the Cultural Olympiad would return to the custom of the earliest games and treat the arts as a competitive event, perhaps even awarding their own gold medals. Instead, they've opted for the more conventional model of a festival. The organisers have chosen a risky slow-striptease strategy, in which they dangled a few names yesterday – Mike Leigh, David Hockney, Toni Morrison, Cate Blanchett – while warning that these are only a fraction of the eventual commissions. This is potentially a clever approach – because pundits can be told that the best will be in the rest – but, with tickets not even going on sale until next October, it risks encouraging anticipation fatigue. But the biggest danger for the Cultural Olympiad's director, Ruth McKenzieRuth Mackenzie, on the basis of the repertoire sketched out today, is that she will be accused of turning Britain into a vast Barbican centre.


The events about which she became most excited at the press conference – the UK premiere of Philip Glass and Robert Wilson's experimental epic, Einstein on the Beach, and a rare chance to see here a play by the German dramatist Botho Strauss – are all niche theatrical events of a sort familiar from the London International Festival of Theatre: the artistic equivalent of the small-bore shooting rather than the 100 metres. Beyond theatre, there are creators with broader appeal: Olafur Eliasson, after attracting two million people to the Tate with his fake sun, deserves another big stage, and dancer Akram Khan, whose choreography appropriately combines aesthetics and athleticism, is another good fit for this gig. The overall theme of "truce" – including a Peace One Day concert in Derry – is potentially problematic, given that the failure of Osama bin Laden and his followers to sign up means that the games will take place amid one of the biggest security operations in history.


Many will be sceptical about why a sporting event needs an artistic sister – the Ashes and the FIFA World Cup manage without – and, if Mackenzie and her team are going to make the case for spending £83m on supplementary culture, they must find at least some events which match the mainstream, feelgood appeal of the topline sports.


Spyns is an active travel company based in Whistler, BC (Canada). For more information about Spyns and our tours to the 2012 London Summer Olympics, please visit our websites http://www.london2012-tours.com/ and http://www.london-tours-2012.com/ or call us toll-free at 1.888.825.4720.

London 2012 Summer Olympics: Hotels and Politics Don't Mix

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London recently lost a bid to host the 2018 World Cup. A backlash was inevitable but little did we think it would result in bouncing international soccer federation (called "Fifa") VPs from London 2012 hotels. Fifa president Sepp Blatter may be bumped from the swank Dorchester Hotel, not because of a fit of pique from Mayor of London Boris Johnson, but because international dignitaries may pull rank.

Mr Johnson, who initially claimed Fifa executives would not be welcome at the Dorchester Hotel following England’s embarrassing two votes for the 2018 World Cup, has now said it is up to the London Olympic organisers to deal with accommodation issues. Johnson told Inside The Games: “The Dorchester Hotel business is really a matter for Locog and I’m sure they’ll make their decision on the best possible basis. “It’s no secret that we are very upset with Fifa though.”

But it is understood that Locog has received an overwhelming flood of applications including from Fifa but also from other VIP’s and embassies who may want to house visiting politicians and their mandarins at the swish hotel. Anybody who is accommodated at the Dorchester, and other leading London hotels, through the London organisers has to pay for their room. “We have had more applications than rooms available,” a Locog spokesperson said. “We haven’t allocated any rooms to anyone at this stage.”


The Olympic rate is based on a three-year average of the rack rate, which at the Dorchester, with its marble finishes and four-poster bed suites, can eclipse £1,000 a night (roughly $1600/night). Only athletes staying at the athletes’ village are given Olympic accommodation free of charge. Fifa officials have stayed at the hotel previously, including during the official evaluation period of England’s bid last summer.


Spyns is an active travel company based in Whistler, BC (Canada). For more information about Spyns and our tours to the 2012 London Summer Olympics, please visit our websites http://www.london2012-tours.com/ and http://www.london-tours-2012.com/ or call us toll-free at 1.888.825.4720.