The Olympics Are The Worst Travel Rip Off Of All Time
It used to be we only had to suffer through it once every four years, now we must spend two weeks out of every two years enduring the hideous spectacle that is the Olympic “games”. First comes the comes the predictions of unprecedented demand for people hoping to attend the host city and purchase tickets for the games. Next, comes the amazing tales of grotesque price gouging. People hundreds of miles away from the venues plan on renting their outhouses to wealthy foreigners for thousands of dollars a night. Inevitably, with the games weeks or even days away, we learn that airline bookings are actually down and there are hotel rooms that are still open in the metro area. Surprise surprise, after years of predicting chaos as hordes of crowds descend on the city, the normal tourist and business travelers have heeded the warnings and stayed away like a plague had erupted.
Welcome To The London 2012 Rip Off
Here is a perfect illustration of the greed and price gouging that we should expect to see more of in the run up to the 2012 Olympics. A hotel in London is offering three nights stay and about $3,000 dollars in tickets for a mere $10,000. So basically what they are doing is offering a hotel room for a mere $2,333 a night. Seriously, this is almost certainly just a way to get around ticket scalping laws. One of the tickets you are getting is for the opening ceremonies, which has a face value of $2,600. Of course, you can’t just one of those tickets at that price, you will either have to pay a scalper, or just 3 nights at a hotel for $2,333 a night. Of course this is possible because the seller of the package, Thomas Cook, is an official Olympic sponsor and has somehow reserved a bunch of hotels that had been set aside for the Olympic organizing committee. Out of those rooms, some were set aside for these “packages.” You have got to love the Olympics!
Skip The Olympics
Ok, by now you have probably guessed that I do not like the Olympic “movement”. For the record, I also hate flowers and kittens. As sports commentator Frank Deford is fond of pointing out “Only the IOC still calls itself a movement and gets away with it. Hey, it’s no more than an international cartel that puts on a big show every four years”.
I worked for the Olympics during the 1996 games in Atlanta, where I had grown up. The whole thing is a big corrupt corporation catering to the international elite and their cronies. Every now and then a friend of mine expresses the interest to plunge his savings into a shoestring trip to the next Olympics. As I always tell him, anyone who values their time and money should stay far away. These people make the NFL, NBA, and the MLB look like the Red Cross.
If you really want to see a great sporting event, go to the world championships of your favorite event. Go see the Tour De France, the World Figure Skating Championships, or the World Swimming Championships. Surround yourself with the true fans of the sport, not some corporate VPs who are only attending the event because their clients offered them tickets.
Perhaps the worst thing about the Olympics is that you will only get the faintest impression of the place you are visiting. I grew up in Atlanta, and I couldn’t recognize it during the Olympics. The city was overwhelmed with not just tourists, but greedy merchants and scammers that follow the Olympic flame around like moths.
See The World, Skip The Olympics
There are still plenty of ways to travel the world at affordable prices. There are many incredible sporting events to be seen and experienced. The Olympics are not one of them.
