Get ready to spend a lot of money if you want to reserve a hotel room in London before Queen Elizabeth II’s official burial.
According to statistics from travel firm Trivago shared with media, the average cost of a hotel room in London this weekend is 30% more expensive than it was for the same weekend in 2019 and 39.5% more expensive than it was last year, when travel was still suffering due to the Covid-19 outbreak. Trivago reports that the number of searches has increased by a factor of two over the same time last year.
Ahead of Monday’s burial in Westminster Abbey, reservations for hotels in London have increased significantly, and some of the most famous hotels are already fully booked.
Thousands of people who wish to pay their respects to Britain’s longest-reigning monarch are expected to attend, along with members of the Royal Family, top British politicians, and heads of state and government from across the world. Since Monday has been proclaimed a holiday, many employees get the day off.
Tim Hentschel, co-founder and CEO of HotelPlanner, a platform for group reservations, claims that “we’re seeing hotel occupancy rates in percentages in the high 90s.” This time of year, he claimed, they typically reach the mid-seventies.
From Friday on, Hentschel added, several hotels have doubled their regular room charges. According to him, top hotels are a particularly sought-after good in terms of price hikes and demand.
For instance, a spokeswoman verified that the 283-room Corinthia London, which is conveniently close to Buckingham Palace, is fully booked for Sunday and Monday. It also looks like The Goring, where Kate Middleton prepared for her nuptials to Prince William, is completely booked.
The top-ranked luxury hotels in the world, such as Claridges, The Connaught, and The Langham, all display as completely booked on their websites, while the establishments advise phoning to check on cancellations. The rates at hotels that aren’t full are higher than they would be on an average September Sunday.
You will pay £480 ($561) per night for a deluxe double room at the Montcalm Hotel in the City of London, the traditional financial hub. A week later, the identical room costs £276. Rooms at the 5-Star Londoner hotel near Leicester Square, which is more well-known for its proximity to the theater district than the palaces, cost £889 on Sunday but only £669 on Sept. 25 the next week. These costs are added to the already high cost of visiting the capital of the United Kingdom in June of this year.
Although rates aren’t necessarily going up, hotels may be out of budget rooms. For instance, the cheapest option this weekend at the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park starts at £2,500 for a 60 square meter (646 square foot) room. 34 square meter (366 square foot) rooms are available for £1,300 on September 25.
Hotels are being recommended on travel websites for that weekend all the way out to The Docklands, which is more than six miles away. If guests have trouble obtaining a bed in central London, HotelPlanner’s Hentschel advises looking towards Windsor or hotels close to Heathrow.
There will likely be a lot of traffic in the vicinity of Westminster Abbey, where the funeral will take place. The UK cabinet office issues a warning that it anticipates significant crowds in and around central London. According to a story in The Sun newspaper, there may be a three-mile-long line of people waiting to pay their respects to the Queen while her casket is lying in state in Westminster Hall.
In 2002, the Queen Mother’s burial was held at Westminster Hall, when an estimated 200,000 people paid their respects. Winston Churchill received the final state funeral in the UK in 1965. Along the route, more than a million people gathered.
