[87attendees] Hotels and walking (was: [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting Review)
Andrew Sullivan <ajs@anvilwalrusden.com> Wed, 14 August 2013 18:34 UTC
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Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2013 14:34:50 -0400
From: Andrew Sullivan <ajs@anvilwalrusden.com>
To: 87attendees@ietf.org
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Subject: [87attendees] Hotels and walking (was: [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting Review)
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On Wed, Aug 14, 2013 at 10:25:12AM -0700, Dave Crocker wrote: > but a commitment for one, with the hotel suffering serious penalty > for getting things wrong. I used to work in hotels, when I was still hoping that them Corporate Philosopher job postings were going to materialize. I can assure you that the hotel _does_ suffer a serious penalty. First, there is a significant cost in having staff running around trying to find rooms. In cases where the hotel I was in was oversold, it inevitably happened when the other hotels were also relatively full. Finding a room -- any room -- took time, and it generally had to be done by hand. This is probably better these days -- at the time, we mostly worked on the phone -- but it's still staff people chasing the problem, and ievitably you realise that you really have a problem when your forecast numbers are running below actual arrivals. Second, the hotel actually has to confirm that reservation, which means that the hotel is at least out the money if the covered reservation doesn't show. Third, depending on the hotel, the grouchiness of the guest who presents, and the terms of the reservation, the overbooked hotel is usually actually paying for the room occupied by the guest (this is the "free nights" provision). Hotels do offer one another discounted rates for this, but it's still not nothing, and if you're wrong by a lot of rooms it can easily blow away your profit for a night. Moreover, in a full hotel margins are reasonably good, but overall the hotel industry works on pretty thin margins. Those thin margins are in fact what allow us to negotiate the enormous blocks we do: the hotel wants to fill the rooms ("heads in beds") very, very badly. These absolutely are costs that negatively affect the hotel. Moreover, they're _really_ costs that affect the front office manager, whose very job depends on skating exactly on the line of ensuring both high occupancy and high room revenue while not ending up with hard or soft costs (roughly, money to another hotel or a dissatisfied guest). That's the basis on which front office managers are evaluated, and people who get this too wrong too far too often (and these are all sensitive to local market condtions) aren't front office managers for very long. > That the error seems to be happening more than once suggests that > our contracts are not forceful enough. Actually, it suggests that we're paying room rates in the lower end of the scale. Hotels are _always_ going to walk the people that represent the lowest likely overall room revenue, just like any other economic agent. Presumably, as the hotel fills, we're paying well below what the room will attract in revenue (either that day or, as likely, over the long haul). You could reduce your chances of being walked by registering at the hotel outside the IETF block, paying regular rates that are higher than our block rate. A PS: In some places (particularly in urban parts of North America), you can often increase your odds of getting a room (or an upgrade) by tipping the front desk clerk, being sure to accept help from the bellhop and tipping him/her, &c. I know someone will be outraged by this fact. It doesn't make it less factlike. -- Andrew Sullivan ajs@anvilwalrusden.com
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Brian Dickson
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Spencer Dawkins at IETF
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Ray Pelletier
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Yoav Nir
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Dan Harkins
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Ole Jacobsen
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Andrew Sullivan
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Ted Lemon
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Keith Moore
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Jakob Heitz
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Phil Hunt
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Yoav Nir
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Spencer Dawkins
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Dave Crocker
- [87attendees] Hotels and walking (was: [87all] IE… Andrew Sullivan
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … John R Levine
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … John R Levine
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Randy Bush
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Mikael Abrahamsson
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Jakob Heitz
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Paul Kyzivat
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Mary Barnes
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Phil Hunt
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Jakob Heitz
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … John R Levine
- Re: [87attendees] Hotels and walking Dave Crocker
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Dave Crocker
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … John R Levine
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Fred Baker (fred)
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Donald Eastlake
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Keith Moore
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Ole Jacobsen
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Charles E. Perkins
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Robert Moskowitz
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Carlos M. Martinez
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Mary Barnes
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Carlos M. Martinez
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Ole Jacobsen
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … John R Levine
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Dave Crocker
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Ole Jacobsen
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Ted Lemon
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Ted Lemon
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Keith Moore
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Derek Atkins
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Paul Kyzivat
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … John R Levine
- [87attendees] SIM purchase at the IETF (was Re: [… Dave Crocker
- Re: [87attendees] SIM purchase at the IETF (was R… Carlos M. Martinez
- Re: [87attendees] SIM purchase at the IETF (was R… Marc Petit-Huguenin
- Re: [87attendees] SIM purchase at the IETF (was R… Arturo Servin
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Spencer Dawkins
- Re: [87attendees] SIM purchase at the IETF (was R… John Bradley
- Re: [87attendees] SIM purchase at the IETF (was R… Yoav Nir
- Re: [87attendees] SIM purchase at the IETF (was R… Keith Moore
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Ted Hardie
- Re: [87attendees] SIM purchase at the IETF (was R… John R Levine
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Tony Hansen
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Ted Lemon
- Re: [87attendees] SIM purchase at the IETF (was R… Mikael Abrahamsson
- Re: [87attendees] SIM purchase at the IETF (was R… Carlos M. Martinez
- Re: [87attendees] SIM purchase at the IETF (was R… Bob Hinden
- Re: [87attendees] SIM purchase at the IETF (was R… Carlos M. Martinez
- Re: [87attendees] SIM purchase at the IETF (was R… Keith Moore
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Lou Berger
- Re: [87attendees] SIM purchase at the IETF (was R… Ole Jacobsen
- Re: [87attendees] SIM purchase at the IETF (was R… Yoav Nir
- Re: [87attendees] SIM purchase at the IETF (was R… Charles E. Perkins
- Re: [87attendees] SIM purchase at the IETF (was R… Kevin Lahey
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Mary Barnes
- Re: [87attendees] SIM purchase at the IETF (was R… John R Levine
- Re: [87attendees] SIM purchase at the IETF (was R… Larry Kreeger (kreeger)
- Re: [87attendees] SIM purchase at the IETF (was R… Raitme Citterio
- [87attendees] SIMs in Vancouver John R Levine
- Re: [87attendees] SIMs in Vancouver Larry Kreeger (kreeger)
- Re: [87attendees] SIMs in Vancouver John R Levine
- Re: [87attendees] SIMs in Vancouver Mishra, Sanjay
- Re: [87attendees] SIMs in Vancouver Larry Kreeger (kreeger)
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Andy Bierman
- Re: [87attendees] SIM purchase at the IETF (was R… Randy Bush
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Olle E. Johansson
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Hermin Anggawijaya
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Spencer Dawkins
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Scott Brim
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Eric McMurry
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Samuel Weiler
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Mary Barnes
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Dave Crocker
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Melinda Shore
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Melinda Shore
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Ted Lemon
- Re: [87attendees] SIM purchase at the IETF (was R… Mary Barnes
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Ted Lemon
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Dave Crocker
- Re: [87attendees] Orlando (was IETF 87 Berlin Mee… Ole Jacobsen
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Randy Bush
- Re: [87attendees] Orlando (was IETF 87 Berlin Mee… Ted Lemon
- Re: [87attendees] Orlando (was IETF 87 Berlin Mee… Ole Jacobsen
- Re: [87attendees] Orlando (was IETF 87 Berlin Mee… John R Levine
- Re: [87attendees] Orlando (was IETF 87 Berlin Mee… Spencer Dawkins
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Tim Chown
- Re: [87attendees] Orlando (was IETF 87 Berlin Mee… Elwyn Davies
- Re: [87attendees] Orlando (was IETF 87 Berlin Mee… Tim Chown
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Hadriel Kaplan
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Ted Lemon
- Re: [87attendees] SIM purchase at the IETF (was R… Bob Hinden
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Andrew G. Malis
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Dave Crocker
- Re: [87attendees] [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting … Rosen, Brian