Here in my home province of Ontario the provincial library association (the Ontario Library Association) has been holding its annual convention in the same hotel/convention center every year --- and they apparently have a multi-year contract so that the hotel & convention center is guaranteed the annual booking of a minimum number of rooms, while the OLA is guaranteed the venue at a lower price (i.e. lower than if they had to negotiate the price, year after year).
I realize that AJL prefers to hold the convention in a diffeent city every year, but .... Would it be possible to find a hotel chain that : - has hotels in most major American cities - allows affordable kashrut catering (I don't know how often we use hotels with kosher kitchens vs. catering in from outside) - has a suitable number of meeting rooms, with audio-visual capabilities and tech support for a decent rate - is willing to reserve us the number of rooms we need in a 4-night block in mid-June, at a decent rate I'm not sure what other criteria to ask for. I'm not suggesting any preference for a particular hotel chain, but I have noticed that at least 5 of the last 11 conventions (Chicago, 1995 ; La Jolla, 2001 ; Denver, 2002 ; Brooklyn, 2004 ; Oakland, 2005) have been held in hotels that are part of the Marriott chain. With all of the business we (as an organization) have been giving Marriott over the years, shouldn't we be entitled to some sort of multi-year deal if we inquire about one? B'shalom, Steven M. Bergson, Librarian Jewish Public Library of Toronto Messages and opinions expressed on Hasafran are those of the individual author and are not necessarily endorsed by the AJL =========================================================== Submissions for Ha-Safran, send to: Hasafran @ lists.acs.ohio-state.edu SUBscribing, SIGNOFF commands send to: Listproc @ lists.acs.ohio-state.edu Questions, problems, complaints, compliments;-) send to: galron.1 @ osu.edu Ha-Safran Archives: Current: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/maillist.html History: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/history.html AJL HomePage http://www.JewishLibraries.org
