Salt Lake City Has Enough Hotels to Accommodate Olympic Entourage. (Originated from Salt Lake Tribune)

Oct. 18--Albertville, France, and Lillehammer, Norway, each started their Winter Olympic quest with fewer than 2,000 hotel rooms.

New hotels were built, citizens opened their homes -- for a hefty price -- and trailers were set up to offer temporary housing. In the European style of low-end lodging, some quarters offered nothing more than a high-priced bed and four walls -- with a community bathroom down the hall.

In Lillehammer, however, housing for the 1994 Games remained so tight that many visitors stayed in Norway's capital, Oslo, and spent up to four hours each day on the train. Olympic organizers were able to lock up only 1,800 hotel rooms for officials and VIPs. Volunteers and bus drivers stayed in schools and in rooms inside some of the arenas

In contrast, Salt Lake City already …