The Mayor of Liverpool wants to promote hotels that don't raise prices for Eurovision 2023

Mayor of Liverpool Joanne Anderson has said she hopes to promote hotels which have not hiked prices ahead of next year’s Eurovision contest.

The city was announced as the host for Eurovision 2023 earlier this month, prompting accommodation prices for the dates of the contest to soar.

Some rooms were advertised for £4,000 a night and people reported having bookings cancelled and re-published at higher prices.

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City mayor Joanne Anderson spoke out ahead of a meeting with BBC director-general Tim Davie at the ACC Liverpool, the venue for the show, on Friday.

She told the PA news agency: “I don’t think we should engage in that. I want to look at promoting those hotels which sign up and commit to not doing that.

“It’s not acceptable. I know hotels do it, but I don’t think it’s on, especially with the silly prices we’ve seen.

“Eurovision is a great thing for our city and we don’t want to see people exploited.”

She said there would also be plans for the transport network so fans staying in other parts of the city region or further afield in the north west could travel to the contest.

Ms Anderson said the build up to the contest was under way and they would be looking at plans which would engage everyone in the UK and Ukraine, which won this year’s contest but will not be able to host due to the Russian invasion.

She said: “Everyone is feeling that excitement you get when you start big party plans.”

Metro mayor of the Liverpool city region Steve Rotheram also expressed disappointment at the price hikes earlier this week and said he would be speaking to those in the hospitality sector.