You can set your watch by it. Every time an Olympic Games year rolls around, out come the stories about over-priced tickets and soaring hotel prices.
I was the main Olympics reporter for the Toronto Star for more than a dozen years and I've seen it happen time and time again, from Vancouver to Athens and Sydney to Salt Lake City. Now it's Paris's turn to take the brunt of the criticism.
The New York Times reports that tickets for the Opening Ceremonies, which will feature a flotilla of barges carrying athletes down the River Seine to the foot of the Eiffel Tower (wow, so like the French to really go for it), are going for as much as $4,000 (all prices CAD). Ooh. La. La.
Want to see something a little less riveting? Men's platform diving final tickets prices start around $1,275.
The Times says many hotels and rental apartments have doubled or tripled their typical summer rates (think an average of nearly $1,500 CAD). Airfares also have skyrocketed. Even the cost of a ride on the Paris Metro has doubled.
The Paris Olympics site, however, says 10 million tickets will be available for the Olympic Games, which run 23JUL to 10AUG. One million tickets will be priced starting at $32 and will be available across all Olympic sports where tickets are on sale. Almost half of the tickets available to the general public are priced at $73, the site states.
But those tickets are often harder to find than a Justin Trudeau supporter in the Alberta oil patch.
And good luck finding an affordable place to rest your head. Reuters quotes a study from a French group called UFC-Que Choisir as saying that the average 3 to 4-star hotel is charging almost $1,275 per night, with an average minimum of 3.4 nights.
Your Open Jaw correspondent went online and found a room at the Hyatt Regency Paris Etoile on 5AUG for $980, and a room at the 3-star Hotel Odyssey (near the Louvre) for $600. Not affordable by a long shot for most folks, but not as high as some reports might suggest.
I also checked Expedia for air fares and found a departing flight from Toronto on Aug. 5 with Air Transat (returning Monday Aug. 12, the day after the Games finish) for $939 roundtrip. Not bad for the height of summer in Europe, and pretty darn good considering its during the Olympics.
