Beijing will not build a great many accommodation facilities for the upcoming 2008 Olympic Games despite the upcoming tourist upsurge, said a senior tourist official on Friday.

There are 626 hotels ranging from one-star to five-star and over 5,300 hostels with nearly 490,000 beds in Beijing, which can basically meet the accommodation demand during the Olympic Games period in 2008, said Yu Changjiang, director with Beijing Municipal Tourist Bureau, at an international hotel forum opened in Beijing on Friday.

About 250,000 foreign visitors are expected to gather in Beijing for the grand sports event and the city's daily accommodation capacity will hit 550,000 taking into account of Chinese visitors and regular tourists, according to official statistics.

Beijing should resort to high-level hotels in its neighboring regions of Hebei and Tianjin and opening more family hostels to cover the minor gap of 100,000 beds, said Yu.

He pointed out that the prior task now is to improve the quality of the current hotel facilities by inviting help from famous domestic and foreign hotel management groups in the first half of 2006.

(Xinhua News Agency October 29, 2005)