Let me add to this that while the room rate in the Boston Sheraton for last month's LISA was $210 single per night/$230 double per night (plus tax) the room rate at the same Boston Sheraton this past week for the Joint Mathematics Meetings was $159 per night single and double.
Sure seems to me the best possible room rates aren't being negotiated. For someone who works for a commercial enterprise and can write off their hotel rates as a business expense, perhaps it doesn't matter. As someone who works for a non-profit institution that squeezes every penny (yes, even given the size of our endowment) the higher cost of the hotel rooms multiplied by several nights can make the difference in whether we can afford to attend. And it has most definitely made a difference in me *not* being able to afford to attend tutorials in the past, thus lowering the potential income for Usenix as well. Arthur Gaer [email protected] On Jan 9, 2012, at 2:26 PM, Jo Rhett wrote: > On Dec 11, 2011, at 10:29 AM, Adam Moskowitz wrote: >> There are a LOT of factors that go into selecting the LISA hotel, and >> into negotiating the room rate. I've worked with the USENIX staff for >> many of those 18 years and I'm 100% confident they get us the best room >> rate possible given the size, requirements, and constraints of LISA. I >> know many people think the room rate is too high, or that it could be >> lower, but the reality is that the room rate is as low as it's going to >> get (again, for LISA, given all the factors). > > > I simply can't let this "best room rate possible" comment pass. Unless there > is some secret requirement that isn't visible from the user perspective, this > simply isn't true. To give you a concrete example: > > One LISA I stayed in the same Marriot for two weeks back to back. The first > week was LISA. I paid $169/night. The second week was a science fiction > convention, and I paid $99/night. For the same room. > > Did the science fiction convention use less of the hotel? No -- they used > more. A lot more. They used every public room the hotel had, and the hotel > had to re-arrange some of the restaurant space to make it available for > convention programming. > > Did the scifi convention buy more services? No, actually they paid for no > coffee, no lunches, nothing. The hotel made no money in extra services. > > Did the scifi convention pay more? No, it was a fan-run convention with no > money except for memberships. Which ran like $50 as compared to LISA's > near-$1000. > > Did the scifi convention have a larger room block? Nope. LISA pulled in > several thousand attendees, where the scifi convention had just over a > thousand. > > I also work with a number of various conventions, providing technical > services to them. I've seen the contracts and exact numbers involved in the > room block size required to have conference rooms made available, and even > the smallest LISA convention easily meets those numbers. All of these > fan-based conventions manage to get really good discounts for their > attendees: $89 and $99/night are the most common numbers. At the exact same > hotels that LISA uses. And always on higher-demand holiday weekends at that! > > In summary, I know that Usenix has professional staff who need to get paid > and I'm quite happy paying money for this. But the absurdly high hotel rates > (often higher than you can get with the hotel on your own) have always > confused me regarding LISA. My best guess has been that LISA gets a monetary > kick-back from the hotel, because it simply doesn't make any sense otherwise. > LISA is always on week which is very low hit, low conflict. LISA easily gets > the 200-room block requirement that most hotels require to get the convention > room space and discounts on the rooms. There's just no reason for the > excessively high room rates. > > -- > Jo Rhett > Net Consonance : consonant endings by net philanthropy, open source and other > randomness > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators > http://lopsa.org/
_______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] https://lists.lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators http://lopsa.org/
