Re: Hotel situation

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

--On Saturday, January 09, 2016 21:32 -0800 Randall Gellens
<[e-mail]> wrote:

> Amusing story, although I expect that, were the IETF to try
> and emulate this, the hotel would find it one of their most
> profitable weeks.  Likely the bar tabs alone would fund the
> entire hotel operation, with gambling winnings providing pure
> gravy.

Having very rarely seen IETF participants, especially a
significant number of participants, drink to or past the level
that would interfere with functioning the following morning, I'd
actually be surprised if, on a per-head basis, we drank
significantly more than the physicists.  

I can't even guess about the gambling tables and our somewhat
smaller numbers might provide some protection, but the physics
group is not the first one to which I've heard of some similar
"not really wanted back" response [1] and have periodically
wondered if the suggestions (or threats) to take up to Vegas
might turn out, for similar reasons, to be a one-time event
unless it was _really_ in their low season.

    john

[1] FWIW, the city, or the casino hotels as a group, telling a
particular group that it shouldn't come back because they
weren't profitable sounds enough like a conspiracy among
competitors to constrain trade or control rates that I'm not
sure how credible that part of the story is.  But I have heard
of casino hotels writing non-room revenue guarantees into
contracts just as more conventional hotels in more conventional
locations sometimes seek guarantees about use of, e.g., their
catering services and other high-profit activities.
Extrapolation from "good rates for Interop and associated trade
shows and conventions" to "good rates for the IETF" might not
actually work, at least more than once.