Traders: London a ghost town

London’s tourism industry is struggling to compete with the impact of the Olympic Games, which has left the host city a “ghost town”, businesses said yesterday.

Many traditional tourist hotspots have reported a fall in ticket sales as visitors flock to Olympic venues across the capital.

Theatre companies said they were seeing a “mixed picture”, with many firms struggling due to the lack of footfall in the West End.

Mark Rubinstein, the president of the Society of London Theatre, said: “Normally tourists will visit central London but they are mostly here to see the Games.

“The message about travel problems also seems to have kept people away.

“My experience is things are running smoothly and people should not be put off.”

Sri Balay, online sales manager at Leicester Square Box Office, said: “Theatre in general is pretty quiet.

“We have a lot of visitors going past but they are going to Olympic events or spending a lot on hotels. We would usually be busy at this time of year because it’s the summer holidays and lots of families enjoy going to the theatre. But at the moment it’s very quiet.”

Steve McNamara, general secretary of the Licensed Taxi Drivers Association, said cab drivers had been hit hard and described London as a “ghost town”.

“Anecdotally, our business is down by about 20%-40% depending on the time of day,” he said. “Normally about 90% of our customers are Londoners but they’ve all left the city and haven’t been replaced by tourists.

“I don’t know where all these tourists are or how they’re getting about but London is like a ghost town. Some drivers are working longer hours just to stand still, others have taken a conscious decision not to pay certain bills, while others have just given up and gone away.”

A spokeswoman for the British Museum said there had been a fall in the number of visitors. “Anecdotally at the moment, it is looking like we are about 25%-30% down on the same time last year,” she said.

Christopher Woodward, director of the Garden Museum said an exhibition at the museum charting the history of foreign flora in British gardens had proved popular.

However, he said the museum had suffered a drop in the number of people booking wedding receptions over August because of the Olympics and the Paralympics.

“No one is getting married in London in August,” he said.

“We have also scheduled the opening of our exhibition to September because of London being semi- deserted.”

He added that Queen Elizabeth’s diamond jubilee celebrations had brought a boost to the museum.

“The Queen’s jubilee was wonderful. We were packed to the rafters with a really happy, nice bunch of people,” he said.

“The jubilee was a big plus this year.”