Jeremy Double wrote on 11 August 2010
13:02:32 ...
On 11/08/2010 06:52, bob wrote:

When I was helping some German friends plan a weekend away in London,
a bit of research found that the best bet for budget hotels in a
reasonably central location was in the area around Kings Cross (and I
don't mean by-the-hour hotels either), and for getting to either the
area around the tower, or to St Pauls and across to the Tate Modern,
Thameslink proved to be quite a useful route. Also handy for pax
flying via Gatwick. By all accounts, plenty of other tourists had
come to the same conclusion regarding hotels.

Although I have stayed in the Kings Cross/St Pancras area a few times,
because the area is convenient for travel to/from London (both Yorkshire
and the continent via Eurostar), I don't see it as being particularly
cheap. Indeed, the Kings Cross Premier Inn is the most expensive
Premier Inn I have stayed at...

Given the availability of Travelcards etc, if I wanted to stay more
cheaply in the London area, I would look at somewhere a little out of
the centre... e.g. for a random date in September, the Premier Inn
called "London Kew" (actually it's in Brentford) is £87 per room,
compared with £150 for "London Kings Cross St Pancras". For my random
date in August, there was no availability at the Kings Cross Premier Inn.

Actually, I don't know how the Kings Cross Premier Inn attracts so much
business at that price, because the Euston Ibis (in no way inferior to
the Premier Inn, IMO) is only £109

It's the value that tourists place on proximity to Thameslink, obviously!
:-)
--
Richard J.
(to email me, swap 'uk' and 'yon' in address)