Altroconsumo, crazy prices for an Olympic weekend: up to 2,000 euro per couple

Sleeping in a three-star hotel or in an airbnb can cost a lot for a weekend for two people in the host cities of the 2026 Olympic Games. If you then compare the prices with a normal weekend in January 2026, the gap is striking: accommodation in Cortina and Valtellina on Olympic weekends remains very expensive, in Cortina more than 2,000 euros, in Valtellina almost 1,700 euros. This is what emerges from the Altroconsumo survey.

In Cortina, people spend an average of just over 2,000 euro to sleep during an Olympic weekend, which is 261% more than on a normal weekend in January. In Valtellina, the average price is almost 1,700 (+437% more than in January 2026). Quite a different order of magnitude for Val di Fiemme and Milan, around €500 for the former and just over €300 for the Lombard capital. In any case, compared to a weekend in the previous month, you pay twice as much.

A comparison of three-star hotels and airbnbs shows that in Cortina, airbnbs cost more than 3 thousand euro on both weekends of the Games and thus cost more than three-star hotels. In Valtellina, on the other hand, it is the hotels that are more expensive, exceeding 2,000 euro for a weekend, while the flats cost just over half that.
In Val di Fiemme, for a short rental you have to pay almost one and a half times the cost of a hotel. In Milan, on the other hand, the gap is less pronounced and airbnb is cheaper.

For some destinations, as the survey shows, it is not a cheap trip and affects overall expenditure. The good news, compared to January prices, is that there are no major price increases for a return trip. However, the cost of the ticket remains important. To give a few examples, a trip for two from Milan to Cortina costs 216 euros return, from Rome to Cortina 338 euros, from Turin 318 euros. The cheapest place to get to from Milan is Tirano station in Valtellina, whose return trip costs 50 euros.

Is there a way to save money? Booking well in advance to be able to choose more competitively priced travel solutions is a valid option. The average variation between the minimum and maximum price of train tickets during the Games is in fact 71%, but it can reach a maximum difference of 164%: this is the case for the return trip Venice-Milan for which we found a minimum price of 82 euros and a maximum of 217 euros.