On Wed, 24 Mar 2010, Lou Berger wrote:
I have no issue if the hotel rates subsidizes the meeting. I've been
told that this is not the case, even though it is what I/many expect. I
guess I should just accept that there is one and that there is no
transparency on this point.
There is some transparency. And there is some subsidy.
The IAOC publishes the meeting financial reports:
http://iaoc.ietf.org/mfstatement_detail.html
You can also find recent ones in your meeting materials packet:
http://www.ietf.org/meeting/77/meeting-packet.pdf
In these reports, one line item under "revenue" is "Hotel Commission".
That's the explicit subsidy.
There may also be implicit subsidy (e.g. lower room costs). That's a
little hard to discern the exact value of, but its existance is
obvious from the expense line items, showing a $0 cost for meeting
rooms in San Francisco but significant meeting room costs in Hiroshima
and Stockholm. On the other hand, SF had higher AV and food costs
than Hiroshima and Stockholm. Even with that, the sum of
rooms+food+AV in SF was lower than the sums from Hiroshima and
Stockholm.
I understand it's a tough balancing act for the IAD & IAOC.
Hopefully having more data about hotel rates, including knowing that
the community is aware of changes in publicly-available rates, will
help them in future negotiations.
-- Sam
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