Travel Question of the Day: Best travel firm for a trip to the Tokyo Olympics in 2020?

Have a travel question that needs answering? Ask our expert Simon Calder

Tokyo is set to host the 2020 Olympics

Q I’m thinking about taking the family to the Tokyo Olympic Games in 2020. Are there any specific travel firms you would recommend?

Michael Gudgeon

A After the spectacle of Rio 2016, it’s natural to be looking ahead to the next Olympiad, to be held in the Japanese capital between 24 July and 9 August 2020, with the Paralympic Games taking place from 25 August until 6 September.

Sports fans can look forward to several new disciplines, including skateboarding, karate and surfing.

While a full schedule of events, plus details of ticketing, is still some way off, you could register your interest at a specialist such as CoSport or Sportsworld.

If you are determined to see key moments, such as the opening ceremony or the men’s 100m final, and are prepared to pay heavily for the privilege, you will have the opportunity to buy a pricey package – including flights, accommodation and events tickets. For a week’s accommodation and three choice sports sessions, you could be looking at £10,000-plus per person.

However, if you simply wish to be in the Japanese capital as it hosts its first Olympics since 1964, and are content to see a few fairly random events, then I suggest a far lower-cost option – and one that I may well exercise.

Just wait until the end of April 2020, and see what is available in terms of flights and accommodation. I have tracked those parameters for all the Olympics this century, and they follow the same pattern. Airlines and hoteliers put up their rates to astronomical levels, perceiving insatiable demand from sports fans, organisers and the media. Certainly they can get away with high prices early on: broadcast organisations and package-tour providers incur high costs, because they need to guarantee flights and accommodation.

About two months out from the opening ceremony, however, they take stock and see they still have large amounts of unsold seats and beds.

Airlines offering non-stop flights generally don’t need to discount (economy fares on BA, the only direct carrier from the UK to Rio, barely dipped below £2,000 immediately before, during and after the Games). But connecting carriers do, and I would be looking at the Gulf-based airlines, as well as Cathay Pacific via Hong Kong and Turkish Airlines via Istanbul.

Likewise, around two months before the opening ceremony, some of the rooms that have been reserved by the organisers are typically handed back, precipitating a glut. Tokyo has tens of thousands of hotel beds, being a business city, and with little commercial life during the Olympics availability will not be a problem. Let the hotelier blink first and you will probably pay significantly less than in a normal summer in Tokyo.

The one tricky issue is tickets. Rio had a surplus, and indeed at the start of the Games I discovered you could buy flights, three nights’ hostel accommodation and a ticket for the men’s 100m final session for under £1,000. In Japan, demand is likely to be much stronger. But as with London in 2012, there will always be some events with spare tickets, and of course the marathons and the road-racing cycling are viewable for free.

Every day, our travel correspondent, Simon Calder, tackles a reader’s question. Just email yours to s@hols.tv or tweet @simoncalder