ATHENS - Left stranded with thousands of empty appartments they had hoped to fill with Olympics visitors, managers of the Games' official home rentals programme are struggling to cut their losses.

"Hospitality 2004," the consortium running the programme, said on Thursday they want to recover a large part of the E1.2-million licence fee they paid to Games' organisers ATHOC.

"That's the money we agreed if everything had gone according to plan," the consortium's president Aristotelis Karytinos said.

The deal with ATHOC needs to be revised because security fears kept tourists from coming to the city, Karystinos said.

"Circumstances changed dramatically. Clients cancelled as much as a quarter of booked homes after the Madrid bombings in March," Karytinos said.

"Hospitality 2004" offered more than 5,000 private homes on short-term rentals to visitors wishing to escape busy hotels during the August 13-29 Games. But only 1,500 deals for a total 700 appartments and houses were made.

"First we worried there would be too many tourists for too few appartments. But in the end it turned out that supply outstripped demand by far," Karytinos said.

:Hospitality 2004," a joint venture of the property arms of two large Greek banks, Alpha and EFG Eurobank, has already filed a "precautionary lawsuit" to have the matter settled in court.

The rentals programme was initially seen as a crucial stopgap solution to boost the capital's modest hotel capacity.

But all demand seems to have been satisfied by Athens hotel owners. As soon as the Games began, they reported occupancy rates exceeding 90%. Most rooms were booked by Games officials.

AFP