Do us all a favour and shift the festivals to November

Move the Edinburgh Festival and Fringe to another month or place to make room for the real tourists

- Simon Calder

The good news: the Balmoral Hotel, which sprouts grandly from Edinburgh Waverley station, has space for next weekend. But you must commit to a three-night minimum stay. In a deluxe castle view room, that indulgence will cost you more than £5,000.

The Balmoral is a magnificent hotel, but if you don’t have the resources of JK Rowling (who famously finished writing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in room 552), you might prefer a simple two-star budget hotel, such as the Ibis in the Old Town. Next Saturday night is all yours for £427.

Now, I have no problem with the travel industry responding to demand by raising prices. It is a sensible way to allocate scarce resources, whether hotel beds or seats on planes. This Friday, some British Airways economy fares between London Heathrow and Edinburgh are touching £500 each way.

Hoteliers and airlines are responding to the intense demand to be in the Scottish capital for the Festival and Fringe, which drape themselves across almost all of August. Audiences, performers and the media bid up prices. Heaven help the unwitting tourist who turns up unaware of the cultural frenzy that seizes the city each summer. Divine intervention is not needed. But radical action is.