EVANSTON — Although the final decision on which city will host of the 2034 Winter Olympics won’t come until summer, Utah is in the targeted dialogue stage. France is the other top choice. In the early stages of applying for the games, all of the applicants were competing for either the 2030 or the 2034 games. In November 2023, the International Olympic Commission (IOC) announced the two finalists who are now in the targeted dialogue stage.
“The decision of the IOC to invite Salt Lake City ... into targeted dialogue as the preferred host for 2034 is a credit to our communities working together to create a welcoming region for sport across our state,” Fraser Bullick, president and CEO of the SLC-UT Committee for the Games said in a prepared statement, according to the Park Record, the Park City, Utah, newspaper.
As part of IOC’s requirements for securing the games, 24,000 hotel rooms need to be secured. John Sindelar, accommodations director for the Salt Lake City-Utah Committee for the Games, has been negotiating with hotels in the Salt Lake area and in cities around an 80-mile perimeter. So far, he has secured hotels in the rural Utah cities of Nephi, Logan and Tooele, along with Evanston.
“Currently, I have 21,000 rooms promised,” Sindelar said. “I have secured rooms in 179 hotels in Utah and two hotels so far in Evanston… Ninety percent of our goal has been met. I will be calling more hotels soon in order to meet our deadline.”
The two hotels with rooms secured in Evanston are the Hampton Inn and the Holiday Inn Express, both just off the busy Harrison Drive. The owner of the Holiday Inn Express is located in Utah and signed up his hotels in both Evanston and in Utah, Sindelar said.
The rooms will house journalists, IOC members, national Olympic committees, international sports federations, sponsors and guests. Each block of rooms is reserved for 33 nights, which includes the 17 nights of the games plus 14 nights before and two nights after the Olympics. Sindelar said the rates for the rooms will be the average cost of the room plus an increase for inflation and an Olympic premium.
Sindelar said, though Salt Lake City hasn’t yet been designated the official site for the games, in November the IOC deemed it a preferred site for the 2034 Winter Olympic Games, naming France as the preferred candidate for the 2030 Games.
Both Utah and France are required to submit the required paperwork by the end of February, and have all of the government assurances in place by March. If both of these deadlines are met, the IOC is expected to award the 2030 and the 2034 Winter Games in July.
Utah still has all the venues from the 2002 games still functioning and available, which Sindelar said the IOC likes. Utah’s venues are still actively being used by the public and for competitors’ training. Sindelar said the Utah Olympic Legacy Foundation (UOLF) has done a great job of maintaining the venues.
