Rooms back on market for the Olympics

Hundreds of extra London hotel rooms have come back on the market with 79 days to go before the Olympics according to Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza owner, InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG).

Richard Solomons, chief executive of IHG, said: "Originally, two-thirds of rooms in 35 of our London hotels went to Locog (the Olympic organising committee) as part of our support for the Games. Locog has just given us 20 per cent of those rooms back and they are back on general sale. Demand is high."

Mr Solomons is also excited that Holiday Inn is running the 15,000-strong athletes village and said: "It has already hugely raised awareness of the brand."

IHG 's first-quarter profits rose 5 per cent to $118m (£73m) – slightly above City forecasts – with revenue per available room rising 7 per cent.

Mr Solomons said that during April, revenues per room had risen by 6.1 per cent with 4.2 per cent of that coming from increased rates.

"In some developed countries it is getting harder to build new hotels so the rates the existing ones can charge are being pushed upwards," he said.