I just love to say "I told you so!"

Yes!! I love it when I'm right and I'm pleased to report that yours truly is right again! Maybe I should take the rest of the year off as I know this trend can't continue. This time it's my prediction that inventory for hotels during the Beijing Olympics would free up (insiders call that cancellation and spoilage) and room rates would plummet. Well, that's just what's happening in China (and it happens for nearly EVERY Olympics...especially the uber-grand-scale Summer Olympics). Read on:

Fan Runjun, an employee of the press department of popular travel Web site Ctrip.com, said many two- to four-star hotels have reduced prices by 10 percent to 20 percent compared to May and June. Some have slashed rates by as much as 30 percent, said Fan, whose site lists about 500 hotels in its English-language section.

The usual pre-Olympic festive atmosphere host cities experience has not hit Beijing yet, with some hotels feeling empty and listless. In June, the number of visitors to Beijing, including overseas and domestic, declined by 19.9 percent from a year earlier, according to the Beijing Tourism Authority.

Now average room prices in three-star hotels are down to $60 per night from $100 in previous months, the China Daily newspaper said Tuesday. Four-star hotels have dropped to about $117 a night, from $220, it said.

Beijing was expecting 500,000 foreign guests for the Aug. 8-24 Olympics, but has been scaling back that estimate. Some people have been scared off by high prices, while others have had trouble getting visas.

So, if you can score a cheap air ticket or you want to cash in some of those frequent-flier miles that seem to be getting less and less valuable by the day, you may want to consider a last-minute trip to Beijing. I won't be going - I'm a renown troublemaker - but be sure to tell me all about it.

I'll be just fine watching that fine piece of beefcake Michael Phelps on the old plasma telly.

(Also, posting to resume next week when I'm back in the USA, the land of stable, high-speed internet connections!)

Beijing hotels slash rates for Olympics as tourists don't show [Seattle Times]