2008 Olympic Games.

Quoted prices for hotel stays in Beijing during the summer Olympics has jumped up by four to ten times higher than normal, said China’s biggest online booking provider Ctrip.com International Ltd.     The travel booking company said on Friday that its online hotel reservation data show that standard hotel rooms in four and five star-ranking hotels during the August Olympics have been nearly booked out.

    ”Only some 20 hotels in Beijing still have rooms available for reservations by foreign tourists during the period. However, mostly probably, only luxury suites are left for them to choose,” said Tang Xiaofeng, senior hotel business development manager of Ctrip.com.

    The website provides updated hotel-room reservation information of 500 of Beijing’s total 800 star-ranking tourist hotels. Nationwide, it has links with 2,800 hotels.

    A receptionist at the Jinlun Hotel, a four-star hotel seated by the side of Beijing’s east-west axis Chang’an Avenue said that all of the hotel rooms have been booked out during the Beijing Olympics with the daily price for a standard room quoted at 6,000 yuan (833 U.S. dollars), as compared to 1,008 yuan (140 U.S. dollars) at present.

    Tang said that most hotels in Beijing require hotel bookers to pay full price in advance for staying during the event. Hotels would not refund the money if customers changed schedules or cancelled reservations.

    He said as hotel rooms in Beijing are getting hotter, many hotels only receive customers who prepare to stay longer than five days in August.

    Beijing is gearing up to accommodate about 500,000 foreigners during the Games, along with huge numbers of domestic tourists.

    Besides tourist hotels and public lodging houses and inns, Beijing will also provide 1,000 officially designated “Olympic Family Hotels” to accommodate the visitors. The cost of each “Olympic Family Hotel” is 50 to 80 dollars per night.

    The Shanghai-based Ctrip.com also found the hotel price in Beijing Olympics’ co-host cities, such as Qingdao and Shenyang would rise by 30-40 percent during the event. The east China coast city of Qingdao, which is also a popular beachside resort city in summer, will see price rises of 50-100 percent higher than normal days during the Games.

About two months to go, the Beijing Olympic organizers pledged on Tuesday to fend off on any illegal advertising related to the Games.     Chen Feng, deputy director of the marketing department of the Beijing Olympics Organizing Committee (BOCOG), told a press conference that Beijing would strengthen the clampdown on violations of Olympics related patents, trademarks and copyrights during the Aug.8-24 Games.

    ”From July 11, all prominent advertising space in Beijing, including at the airport and on subway lines, will be controlled, giving official sponsors priority,” said Chen.

    ”Companies will be monitored for illegal advertising and serious action will be taken against violators.”

    Ambush marketing is a form of sports marketing. It becomes a problem when a company tries to create an unauthorized association between its name, its brand, and the Olympics.

    While multinationals like Coca-Cola and Samsung paid tens of millions of U.S. dollars to link their names with the Beijing Olympics, ambush marketers try to use the publicity surrounding the games to promote their products without paying for the right.

    Chen said spectators will also be under careful scrutiny for possible unauthorized advertising.

    ”If a group of spectators wear the same clothes, then it is suspicious,” he said. “We will then talk with them and try to stop it.”

    BOCOG and the China Advertising Association issued a written proposal aimed at joint anti-ambush marketing.

    The proposal states that advertising agencies should increase their understanding of Olympic marketing regulations, respect professional ethics, and not engage in ambush marketing activities.

China launched Thursday a four-month campaign to crack down on Internet intellectual copyright infringement in an attempt to ensure legal online communication services as the Olympics approach.     Xu Chao, a senior official with the National Copyright Administration, said the campaign aimed to prevent illegal dissemination of Olympic events and related activities online in accordance with the country’s Copyright Law, the Olympic Charter and relevant agreements between the Chinese government and International Olympic Committee.

    According to the administration, Youtube-like video-sharing websites will be the focus of the drive.

    The campaign will also step up scrutiny of large websites that especially deal in music, films, software, books and games among other contents.

    ”We will also mobilize online authors and the public to cooperate in this movement. They can report alleged infringement cases via telephone hot line or the Internet,” said Xu.

    According to the Beijing authorities, during the games, anyone can report infringement via a hotline, 12312. Those convinced of infringement will face punishment under China’s laws and regulations for intellectual property rights protection.

    Last month, China began to offer huge rewards to citizens for reporting Olympic logo infringement cases. The largest rewards will be 100,000 yuan (14,286 U.S. dollars).

    Infringement of Olympic logos has grown rampant as the games draw near. Items that have been manufactured and used without authorization include the official mascots (Fuwas), the emblems for the Beijing Olympics and Paralympics Games, Beijing’s Olympic slogan and the symbol of the Olympic torch relay.

    From 2004 to last September, administrations for industry and commerce at various levels had investigated 1,357 intellectual property rights infringement cases related to the Olympics involving 16.93 million yuan.

    The campaign is being jointly carried out by the National Copyright Administration, the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.