Lahti housing debate continues as WMA veep weighs in

You’ve raised the questions. So what’s the deal? Is Lahti booked up for worlds? Are motels jacking up prices? Is the official tour operator looking to cash in? Here’s the latest word from Rex Harvey, vice president of World Masters Athletics: “Monty (Hacker, WMA acting prez) and Friedel (Schunk), as WMA treasurer, have recently been in Lahti and housing was one of their specific subjects for being there. As I understand it, what they found was that travel agents had reserved about 60% of the hotel space in Lahti and that is why Lahti Travel was telling me earlier that Lahti was booked. It appears that the travel agents are using the rooms as bait for their total packages rather than just selling rooms alone.”

Rex continues:

So it seems that there are plenty of rooms still available in Lahti, which can be obtained by following the directions that the Lahti website gives. The exact number and type will not be known until after the 15Jan09 expiration of the travel agent set-asides. Why don’t you break this on your site and get things going?

Later yesterday, Rex sent this note:

Here is what Monty just now sent me in addition to what I just sent. I think we are both saying the same thing.
“The WMA Exco is satisfied, on information received from the Lahti LOC (Lahti Travel), that there is still an abundance of accommodation available in Lahti for the 2009 WMA Championships. Furthermore additional accommodation will become available after January 15th, 2009, when excess rooms allocated to Tour operators are released by them”.

So the bottom line is: Wait a couple week and try again, if you’ve been stymied up till now. Please report your experiences. Need to bird-dog these folks.