Rio to make more hotel rooms available for 2016

SAO PAULO — Rio de Janeiro officials announced on Monday the city's hotels are planning to make available nearly 2,000 additional rooms for the 2016 Olympics, addressing one of the key issues that had prompted criticism of the city's bid by the International Olympic Committee. The announcement came less than two weeks before the Oct. 2 vote to decide who will host the games. The IOC said in a report earlier this month that Rio, which is trying to bring the games to South America for the first time, had an "insufficient" number of hotel rooms and that plans to use four villages and six cruise ships would "require particular attention in both the planning and delivery phases." Rio's accommodation plan guarantees more than 48,000 rooms will be available, meeting the IOC requirement of at least 40,000 rooms. The city would meet that target with about 13,000 guaranteed hotel rooms, 25,000 rooms in newly built villages, 8,500 rooms on cruise ships and 1,700 rooms in "apartment hotels." Brazil's Sport Minister Orlando Silva said last week the hotel rooms would not be an issue because Rio will already have to increase available accommodation for the 2014 World Cup, which will largely be based in the city. – AP