David Barboza reports in the New York Times, from Beijing:

The plush lobby of the Kerry Center Hotel in Beijing is usually crowded with foreign guests this time of year, most of them lounging in Centro, a hip bar, listening to jazz and sipping martinis, or queuing up in the taxi line after power dinners at the Horizon restaurant.

But Thursday evening, Centro had only a sprinkling of guests in a hotel whose occupancy rate is typically close to 100 percent during this time of the year. Tonight, the duty manager said after tapping a few computer keys, it stood at just 63 percent.

“I really don’t know what happened,” said Sun Yin, the duty manager. “Something strange has been going on.”

The problem, it seems, is that with the Olympics less than two months away, China has been restricting foreign visitors from entering the country in the hope of guarding against terrorist threats or unruly visitors who might plot to disrupt the Games, which begin Aug. 8.