IBS

ALTHOUGH the 2008 Summer Olympics, being held in Beijing from Aug. 8 until Aug. 24, are still a full year away, making plans to attend the Games has already come down to a roulettelike gamble of hurry-up-and-wait, with choices narrowing as time goes by.

The most important task is securing tickets, which can be difficult. Only a certain number of tickets are allocated to each country, and direct ticket-buying in each is only available to local residents. Unfortunately, the cutoff date for entering the lottery to reserve the exact tickets you want was June 30. But, though there are few guarantees of actually scoring a seat, there are other options if you’re willing to compromise on price or on which events you attend.

For starters, keep tabs on CoSport (877-457-4647; www.cosport.com), a tour operator and the sole official 2008 ticket agent in the United States. Early reservations are being confirmed and tickets allocated now through September; yet although tickets to more popular events might be hard to come by, whatever is left will be sold live, first come first served, starting this October. Exact sale dates are unconfirmed, so keep checking for updates. Tickets range from $5 for events like baseball to $773 for the opening ceremonies, said Adam Wixted, a spokesman for CoSport.

If you would rather pay a bit extra to get tickets now, the resale market is already an option. Don’t expect to find many sales by individuals on sites like eBay until next July, when tickets are distributed. However, professional resale brokers, who often buy their own tickets or have prearranged deals for the unused tickets of wholesale buyers (like corporate sponsors), are already selling tickets by the thousands at Web sites like TicketLiquidator.com, an aggregator for resale brokers, often with buyer guarantees.

One reason for the exceptionally high demand already seen for Beijing’s Olympics is the comparative affordability of tickets, said Don Vaccaro, chief executive of TicketLiquidator. “Beijing is tougher because they took special care and effort to make the pricing low enough to make sure that most of the events — if not all of the events — would sell out,” he said. “They didn’t want what happened in Torino — where Olympians were playing to far less than packed houses — to happen in Beijing.”

The bigger problem, he said, would be finding affordable airfare and a places to stay. As with ticket sales, it’s a question of timing, availability and luck. With Olympic Committee members, journalists and corporate sponsors from around the world planning to flood Beijing, availability is tight.

This is particularly true at the luxury end. “Almost all the five-star or luxury hotels in Beijing during the Olympic Games time frame will be blocked,” said Dawei Wu, communications director for the China National Tourist Office. Tour operators may be your best option: major hotel booking sites like Expedia, Orbitz, Hotels.com and Travelocity won’t accept reservations until roughly 330 days before arrival, which means individuals booking a hotel online have to wait until early September. Ditto for plane tickets.

A second issue arises from a combination of lengthy minimum-stay requirements and inflated room rates, with the inability of tour operators other than CoSport to secure tickets.

“We’re working with the Peninsula, and you have to spend a week there,” said Donna Foersom, marketing manager for Abercrombie & Kent (800-554-7016; www.abercrombiekent.com), a luxury tour operator that will not be offering Olympic-themed packages, but which can arrange custom itineraries. “Without a guarantee of tickets, it’s a difficult thing for people to take up.”

Nathaniel Waring, president of Cox & Kings USA (800-999-1758; www.coxandkingsusa.com), a luxury tour operator, said that although his company can arrange tours around the Olympics, but not for the Games themselves, only a handful of clients and small groups had made the commitment yet.

“A lot of companies are staying away from the Olympics because of the difficulty in getting premium hotel rooms and the difficulty, or near impossibility so far, of getting the exact tickets that you want,” Mr. Waring said. “If somebody’s going that far, and they really want to see gymnastics or the opening games, but you’re told you can’t confirm what you’re going to get right now, and then the hotel wants your money for 10 days, it’s a big commitment.”

Some tour operators have prearranged deals with local hotels. One example is Let’s Travel China (800-801-3188; www.letstravelchina.com), which has secured the entire 218-room Plaza Hotel for its clients as part of their Olympic tour packages, with minimum-stay requirements of only four nights.

Mongol Global Tour Company (866-225-0577; www.mongolglobaltours.com) has reserved a block of 26 apartments (ranging from studios to three-bedroom suites) a short walk from the site of the opening ceremonies, along with rooms in a nearby boutique hotel, as part of its Olympics tours.

Of course, if you’re heading all the way to China, there’s a lot more to see than just Beijing. And planning a tour of China gives you something of a safety net if your tickets don’t come through. All the companies mentioned in this article offer such programs, as do many others (for more tour operator listings, try the China National Tourism Office, 888-760-8218; www.cnto.org).

Part of that tour can include a cruise. Because Beijing is well inland from China’s coast, ocean liner cruising isn’t a huge option (although a new terminal is expected to be completed in Shanghai sometime next year, while other cruising ports-of-call like Tianjin provide similar gateways to the interior). But riverboat cruising up the Yangtze is. If you’re making your own arrangements, check out companies like Viking River Cruises (877-668-4546; www.vikingrivercruises.com) and Uniworld Grand River Cruises (800-733-7820; www.uniworld.com). Otherwise tour operators, like those mentioned above, can include river tours in their broader itineraries.

“We’re saying, look, we’ll do the pre and the post and make sure that you have a great experience in China,” Mr. Waring said. “And then if you really try hard, get the tickets on the black market, pay your broker to get the tickets. But you’ve got to start somewhere.”