The International Olympic Committee has outlined its first steps to reduce the often prohibitive cost of bidding for and staging the Games.

The IOC has been stung by the lack of interest in bidding for the 2022 Winter Olympics - Oslo withdrew its interest earlier this month, leaving just two cities involved - and is to adopt a more touchy-feely approach to dealing with prospective bidders for future Games.

In future, Olympic chiefs will stress to candidate cities that they do not need to embark on hugely expensive building projects if the existing infrastructure is already sufficient. The estimated US dollars 51billion spent by Russia on transport and construction projects linked to the Sochi Winter Olympics - many not demanded by the IOC - has proved a huge deterrent to other cities to launch bids.

The ban on IOC members visiting bidding cities - imposed after the Salt Lake City bribery scandal in 2001 - will remain.

IOC president Thomas Bach told a conference call: "We want to turn the bidding procedure more into an invitation for discussion and partnership with the IOC rather than just an application for a tender.

"We want to make an effort to reduce the cost of the bidding and make it even clearer to the bidding cities what is needed from the IOC, and what would be nice to have from their point of view but is not necessary for the IOC."

The full changes on bidding, and on changes to the Olympics sports programmes, will be voted on at a special IOC session in Monaco in December.

Bach said no changes to the sports would be imposed for the 2016 and 2020 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo, respectively, and that any changes would have to be within the existing size of the Olympics. One proposal to extend the duration of the Games from 17 to 22 days to allow more sports to be accommodated has been rejected.

"We want to have more flexibility for the Olympic programme, but at the same time we want to address the issue of sustainability," Bach added. "This flexibility can only happen within certain limitations, and not making the Games grow, and controlling the size and the management of the Games."

Bach did leave the door open, however, for baseball/softball and possibly squash to still be included for Tokyo 2020, but said this would only happen if the local organisers made an approach to include an extra sport.