Re: [73attendees] Attendance by country

[John C Klensin <[e-mail]>]

--On Wednesday, 03 December, 2008 09:34 -0600 Mary Barnes
<[e-mail]> wrote:

> So, I agree comparing airfare only between SF and Minneapolis
> won't give you a true comparison of overall costs for the two
> meeting sites. In general, Minneapolis is a bargain compared 
> to most other major U.S. cities.  

Especially once it starts to get cold.  I understand that
Phoenix can be a huge bargain if one decides to schedule July
meetings there and that, since the AmericaWest - US Airways
merger, it pretty easy to get to in terms of connections.  Now,
if one wants to avoid that carrier and its attitudes toward
customer service, flight cancellations, etc., that is another
matter entirely, but that is yet an additional dimension of the
problem.

That is not entirely a joke.  I worked with a standards group
for some years that regularly scheduled its meetings into places
that were considered very attractive destinations, but used them
only in the "place nearly closed" off-season.  The facilities
were available, the local hotels, etc., were extremely happy to
get the business, airlines did not price flights on a "we can
sell those seats no matter what we charge" basis, and no one in
an organizational travel policy office was going to suggest that
Phoenix (since I'm picking on them) in July or Provincetown in
November (anyone who has been there at that time of year would
have an immediate understanding of why the Mayflower crew
stopped, took a look around, contemplating the prevailing
breezes, and moved on) were big tourist destinations and a
general boggle.  Off the North American continent, I'd also
suggest considering Aberdeen in March, Cairo in July,...

I assume that, if the IAOC called Hilton and asked for good (for
availability and for them) meeting locations in a given month,
they could offer any number of recommendations of the above type
on the continent of our choice :-(

   john



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