London turns into ‘ghost town’

KARACHI: Warning over Olympic travel chaos has turned London’s key sites into ‘ghost towns’ causing great threat to Britain’s economy.

Government had sent messages to avoid traveling to London, if not important, which turned too well but caused a fall to visitors’ number.

Government had also advised Londoners and people employed in the capital to avoid traveling during peak times to shun traveling mayhems.

Incredibly, almost a third of the five million people employed in London are likely to heed official advice to work from home at some point over the fortnight to avoid disruption.

While government is facing pressures to rethink their decision to allow hundreds of thousands of civil servants to work from home while the Games are on.

Prime attractions, are reporting visitor numbers declined by one-third on the same period last year. Experts insist that even if Britain fails to get short-term benefits from the London Olympics, Britain will enjoy long-term benefits in terms of increased trade and tourism.

Steve McNamara, of the Licensed Taxi Drivers’ Association, said cab drivers had also been affected badly.

He said, “Normally about 90 per cent of our customers are Londoners but they’ve all left the city and haven’t been replaced by tourists.”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,” he added.

However, London Mayor Boris Johnson maintains, “Things are going really well. Many, many thousands of people are flowing into London, the hotels are busy, the Olympic venues are attracting huge numbers and people are enjoying the brilliant live sites, a raft of free events for all the family and the free sport as well, with hundreds of thousands out over the weekend for the cycling.”