If you’ve never experienced the build-up to an Olympics first-hand, imagine all the hype surrounding the Super Bowl, but  stretched out for years and years instead of just a few weeks.  In Vancouver, which is hosting the 2010 Winter Games in February, the Olympics have been front-page news since about 2003.  Officials have spent $1.6 billion on, among other things, the snazziest curling rink the world has ever seen.  One thing they may have neglected, however, is a place to put all the people expected to show up.  I wrote about the city’s Olympic accommodation crunch in an article for Sunday’s Washington Post travel section.

Vancouver’s hotel shortage sets off an Olympic scramble

By Remy Scalza; Special to The Washington Post

It doesn’t take a gold medal in arithmetic to see that the numbers didn’t add up.

About 250,000 spectators are expected to pour into Vancouver, B.C., for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in February. Yet according to the city’s Olympic committee, only a paltry 10,000 hotel rooms were available to them. With three months to go before the Opening Ceremonies, the pool of rooms at hotels in and around Vancouver — from highway HoJos to the Four Seasons — has essentially dried up.

Click here for the full article on The Washington Post site.

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Around Vancouver, several Indian bands are rewriting the book on Aboriginal tourism in the lead-up to the Olympic Games, moving away from tepee villages and kitschy gift shops and embracing more authentic and sophisticated experiences.  I checked out a few of the new Aboriginal offerings in an article for The Washington Post:

As hosts of the Vancouver Olympics, First Nations are ready to welcome the world

By Remy Scalza; Special to The Washington Post

It’s an Olympic first that has drawn few headlines. When the 2010 Winter Games open in Vancouver, B.C., in February, four Canadian Indian nations will be on hand — not as window dressing but as full-fledged hosts. “This isn’t just get out the drums and feathers for the Opening Ceremonies,” says Alex Rose, communications director for the Four Host First Nations, the society representing the four groups of Canada’s indigenous people who will host the Games. “Those days are gone.”

Largely gone, too, are the tepees, totem poles and tchotchkes that once defined aboriginal tourism in Canada. In their place has sprung up a new generation of indigenous travel experiences — from urban powwows to luxe native-owned wineries — aimed at courting the more than 250,000 visitors expected at the Games.

Click here for the full article on The Washington Post site.

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• Olympic Winos: Great grapes at Vancouver 2010
• Short on Hotels, Olympic City Vancouver Gets Creative: Tents, RVs and hostels to house fans
• Rolling Through Vancouver’s Olympic-Size Sushi Scene

Anyone who likes sushi – or Canadians – might be interested in this article I wrote, which appeared in Sunday’s Washington Post.

Rolling Through Vancouver’s Olympic-Size Sushi Scene

By Remy Scalza; Special to The Washington Post

It’s hard to say what was going through the minds of Vancouver’s Olympic planners when they came up with the mascots for next year’s Winter Games. To serve as one of Canada’s ambassadors to the world, they picked an earmuffs-wearing Big Foot that looks like Chewbacca. The city’s Olympic brain trust could have saved themselves a lot of trouble by recognizing a real symbol of Vancouver: a big piece of sashimi.

Click here for the full article on The Washington Post site.

Related Stories on RemyScalza.com

• Short on Hotels, Olympic City Vancouver Gets Creative: Tents, RVs and hostels to house fans
• Aboriginal Tourism 2.0: Canada’s First Nations Court Olympic Tourists
• Olympic Winos: Great grapes at Vancouver 2010