Hotels, Peak-Load Problems, and Sporting Events

Jacksonville Florida arranged for five cruise ships to be in port during the Super Bowl to provide additional hotel space for all the extra visitors.

The Super Bowl committee worked with cruise ship meeting planners Landry & Kling, which wrangled the five ships from three lines -- Radisson Seven Seas, Carnival and Holland America -- that have become part of the week's Super Bowl scenery.

What a brilliant way to deal with short-term peak demand by using a flexible physical capital base. It is not the first time it has been done, however.

...[It] had been done at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics and was part of the deal that helped Athens land the Games.

I wonder whether and to what extent the municipality must be involved in this type of arrangment. What is to keep a cruise line from making advance arrangments to berth in Vancouvre for the 2010 winter Olympics there and advertising their cabins as alternative hotel space?