Re: IETF 104 Registration and Hotel Reservations Openo

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

Lou,

I know even less about the details of IETF hotel contracts than
I used to, but let me suggest a consideration about this that
you seem to be skipping over and that is an issue with typical
hotel contracts for meeting attendees.  In return for whatever
price people pay and for making representations about how many
people the meeting will bring to the hotel, the body holding the
meeting usually gets a number of things that don't show up in
the rooms themselves.  That list often includes a few free (or
significantly upgraded or reduced cost) guest rooms, free or
discounted meeting rooms or other facilities, etc.  The deals
are often contingent on the meeting organization filling a
certain number of rooms at the agreed rate.

Now, given that our contracts are in place years in advance,
suppose that a hotel decides to advertise rooms at well below
the IETF rate, perhaps to help fill the part of the house the
IETF hasn't promised to sell.  One of us notices, takes one of
the cheaper rooms, and announces their availability on the list.
Unless the hotel notices (how would they?) and adjusts the
number of rooms available at the lower rate very quickly, we
could end up with a lot of IETF participant registrations that
are not counted in the IETF block, potentially putting the
IETF's guarantee of how many rooms we would fill at risk and
imposing costs that would need to come out of the IETF budget.
Similarly, suppose AMS manages to negotiate a rate based on the
24 hour cancellation policy that, judging from discussions on
this list, many of us seem to want or need.  Then suppose the
hotel decides that policy causes excessive uncertainty and
offers a rate ten or 20% lower in return for a "no refunds" or
"cancel with penalties that rise as the meeting gets closer"
policy.  I understand your point, but it seems to me to be very
risky for us to go there, especially because, if the changed
policy hurts us or make it harder for us to make guarantees
about room blocks, other hotels could figure that out and take
advantage of it a lot more quickly than we could change
policies, especially about contracts already signed.

   john



--On Friday, January 4, 2019 12:20 -0500 Lou Berger
<[e-mail]> wrote:

> Hi Alexa,
> 
> Happy new year
> 
> Cutting to the key point:
>> 
>> One might make the case then that we should not point out
>> such  instances to the hotel, when they occur. However it's
>> important that  the hotel understand that we take our
>> contract seriously, and that we  are indeed vigilant about
>> ensuring that the IETF guest room rate is  the best rate we
>> can secure. This vigilance helps us in future  negotiations.
>> 
> I think getting the hotel to remove lower rate's available
> during the IETF week is simply counter to the interest of both
> attendees and the IETF.  I furthermore think that any clause
> that precludes a hotel from offering lower rates is a
> *mistake* to include in the contract.  Having the hotel offer
> lower rates during the IETF helps attendees immediately  and
> the IETF in the longer term by being able to negotiate the
> fact that lower rates were offered show that our rates were
> too high*.  FWIW I remember when Ray instituted this practice
> and had the obviously wrong understanding that the practice
> had since stopped.
> 
> I really hope AMS changes both such rate "enforcement" and
> removes the related clause from future hotel contracts.