Re: Hotel situation

[Mary Barnes <[e-mail]>]

On Mon, Jan 4, 2016 at 10:39 AM, Eric Gray <[e-mail]> wrote:

> One odd thing is that there are other groups who can't tell you what week
> they're going to have a meeting any time in the next 6-7 years, but who can
> seem to get block sizes for a larger percentage of the attendees at
> meetings this year than the 15-25% we seem to get for IETF meetings anymore.
>
> And this has been a worsening trend.  I've attended most IETF meetings in
> the last 20 years (I have the t-shirts to prove it) and I can remember when
> it was still possible to book a room at one of the meeting hotels at the
> IETF rate at least up to the block cut-off date (as opposed to an hour
> after the hotel information is made available).


> Something changed for IETF hotel bookings about the time of the
> bubble-burst and most of us don't have any visibility into what that is.
> We can speculate, but there seems to be empirical data that supports the
> idea that it is not an unsolvable problem.
>
[MB] My personal thought here is that the change has been due to the fact
that we seem to be going to more exotic venues and also to venues that are
more touristy destinations - e.g., Orlando during one of the busiest weeks
of the year, Europe in the summer, Hawaii in November, etc.  I realize that
it's a minority that prefers Minneapolis, but I'd like to see the data in
terms of length and degree of participation and contribution to IETF that
goes along with the preferences for various destinations and it would also
be nice to see how many people that prefer more popular tourist
destinations travel with companions that would have no interest whatsoever
to spend time in Minneapolis in the winter.   I understand a bit that the
popular touristy destinations attract more paying participants but I
question whether they attract more long term contributors.  I do have to
say that I like the fact that the meeting rooms aren't nearly as crowded
when we meet at touristy locations.
[/MB]

>
> --
> E
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ietf [mailto:[e-mail]] On Behalf Of Ted Lemon
> Sent: Wednesday, December 16, 2015 11:52 AM
> To: Melinda Shore; IETF Discussion
> Subject: RE: Hotel situation
>
> > Why are we continuing to have hotel issues meeting after meeting
> > after meeting after meeting?
>
> Because we can't force hotels to give us large allocations.   This was
> discussed at length at the last plenary.   Getting venues that do
> everything we want is hard.
>
> That said, I think you'd make a great candidate for the IAOC next time if
> you feel like trying to disprove this point!   :)
>
>