Re: [Mtgvenue] Last Call: <draft-ietf-mtgvenue-meeting-policy-04.txt> (High level guidance for the meeting policy of the IETF) to Best Current Practice

[Ted Lemon <[e-mail]>]

On Apr 20, 2018, at 11:06 AM, Eric Rescorla <[e-mail]> wrote:
> Thanks for making this point. I totally agree that where we have the meetings influences participation.
> This is why I explicitly mentioned Yokohama. Even when we meet in Asia (which is presumably the
> most favorable environment for Asian participation) we still generally get below 1/3 Asian attendance,
> and if we also meet other places, the overall numbers are going to be lower.

Yes, it would be interesting to see if there is a similar visa barrier for entry into Japan that is producing this effect, or if it's simply that potential asian attendees' employers do not see sending people to IETF as being as good a cost/benefit tradeoff as U.S. employers.   But I suspect that if this is the case, the Asian employers are on the leading edge of the trend.   It will be interesting to see what the numbers look like for Bangkok—I think this is a relatively easy travel destination from China at least.

> I don't think that's the argument I'm offering. I personally wasn't much of a fan of Hawaii either, for many of the reasons you offer (though I note that they don't seem to be in the selection document!). I'm just saying that "continent" isn't a very good proxy for travel cost.


That's good to hear.   I suspect from a pure cost-of-air-travel perspective Hawaii is not a bad deal, but the hoops I had to jump through to get the travel paid for were ... unusual.   And it felt like the venue staff saw us as a problem to be managed rather than as customers to take care of.