Exclusive: Glasgow 95% Full For Games

10 July 2014, 05:00

Over 175,000 rooms have been sold in Glasgow alone for the Commonwealth Games.

In an exclusive interview with Heart, Glasgow City Marketing Bureau's Chief Executive Scott Taylor said: "There are 8,500 rooms across Glasgow being used by the Commonwealth Games - the families, security, the contractors etc. On top of that you've got all the ticket holders that want to come, the spectators that want to stay.

"Over a million tickets have been sold, 400,000 of those down in England and Wales and Northern Ireland, so a lot of people wanting to come and stay.

"So we're certainly looking at in the region of 175,000 rooms in hotels and guest houses and universities - anything with a bed has been sold over that period.

"There's still some rooms left, but over the 11 nights of the Games (research shows) we're looking at over 175,000 rooms that've been sold. That's out of a total of some 200,000 rooms available in Greater Glasgow, in the Metropolitan area and the wider city area. It's huge."

For people who've left it to the last minute, Mr Taylor's recommending looking along the M8 to find a place to rest your head. He said: "We do know there are people staying in Edinburgh who are hot-footing it over to Glasgow on the trains every 15 minutes.

"Being an hour away if you'd stayed in London during the Olympics, you'd have considered yourself to be absolutely dead centre to London. So I think people are used to that sort of journey time to get to something of this magnitude."

The current figures for occupancy in the city over the Games' period is around 87%, but there are nights when that number is hitting 95%.

And that's set to get the tills ringing: "It's really big business. Talking to a number of the hoteliers and restauranteurs, they're expecting sales to effectively increase by more than 50% against the same period last year.

"It's ultimately an amazing experience. If you estimate that 3,500,000 people will be coming in to Greater Glasgow are to experience the Games, this is going to be the biggest party that Scotland's ever held."