Re: Hotel situation

On Fri, Dec 18, 2015 at 12:16 PM Toerless Eckert <eckert(_at_)cisco(_dot_)com> 
wrote:

On Thu, Dec 17, 2015 at 06:10:04PM +0000, Warren Kumari wrote:

Yup. I have been to a number of IEEE meetings and stayed in the IEEE

hotel

in order to get the discount - the next 802 Plenary is at the Venetian in
Macau. The registration page (
http://802world.org/plenary/ieee-802-group-hotel/ ) says:
-------------------------------
Group Hotel Registration Policy
The combined hotel room stays of attendees are used to offset the cost of
the meeting. For this reason, anyone who is not a registered guest at the
Sands Venetian Macao Hotel for three (3) or more nights is not eligible

for

the registration discount ($US 450.00).
------------------------------

The room rate starts at 1,550.00MOP (~$180USD). The discounted

registration

fee is $600USD.
The non-discounted fee is $1050USD.


3000 rooms there. If every attendee could get a room at the $180 rate,
then this wouldn't be such a bad deal. Seems like the opposite of the
current
IETF problem: Large hotel with too many rooms that need to be filled. And
several other competing hotels in walking distance.

WOuld be interesting to know if IETF ever ran into the problem
of not filling up blocked rooms...

The IEEE seems to have many fewer requirements / expectations from their
attendees.
For example, one of the recent meetings was in the Estrel in Berlin, a
hotel which would not suit the IETF at all.


Why not ? 1150 room would be perfect size. Probably because IETF wouldn't
reserve enough of the conference space, so we wouldn't get a good deal
with them ?


I'm not sure of all of the reasons, but:
1: there is basically nothing within walking distance. When I wanted to get
out of the hotel for food I managed to find a (bad) gyro / curry wurst
vendor. IETF people have repeatedly demanded many nice food places within
walking distance.
2: There do not seem to be nearly enough break out rooms. A number of the
IEEE meetings I attended were in guest rooms that they had taken the beds
out of.
3: The food options in the hotel were quite limited. I really enjoyed
the Schweinshaxe, but after the N days many people would probably get bored
of it...
3: As far as I remember, their network infrastructure was, um, sad.

Perhaps if IETF attendees didn't demand everything that we do (lots of

breakout rooms, walking distance to bars and restaurants, no trains, the
ability to install and run our own network, not being in Minneapolis,

large

cookies, specific price points, a willingness to keep going back to the
same N locations) we wouldn't have so much kvetching.


+1 on almost everything. I think inexpensive helps diversity, and
number of breakout rooms is just at the core of our work.

And ++1 on Minneapolis in November again.


Yup. I too like the Minneapolis idea (as do a number of other people who
seem to be very active on the list / in the IETF), but it seem that we are
in the minority:
https://iaoc.ietf.org/documents/Venue-Preference-Survey-2014.pdf

 W


Cheers
    Toerless

Behcet



-glenn



On 12/16/15, 3:24 PM, "Ray Pelletier" <rpelletier(_at_)isoc(_dot_)org> 
wrote:

Glenn,

On Dec 16, 2015, at 12:54 PM, Deen, Glenn (NBCUniversal)
<glenn(_dot_)deen(_at_)nbcuni(_dot_)com> wrote:

   Q- What??s the room block size we are getting at the recent

venues

compared to what we got at previous ones like Vancouver, or Berlin?


There are many hotels in Buenos Aires but they do not have many

rooms.


When we announced on 10 December that registration would open on 16
December
we said:

Registration and hotel reservations for IETF 95 in Buenos Aires will
open at 1500 UTC Wednesday, December 16. Hotel reservations will

include

the headquarters hotel and the contracted overflow hotels available
at that time.

Because hotels in Buenos Aires have a limited number of guest rooms,
the IETF has been negotiating contracts with ten hotels.  Hotels not
available on December 16 will be announced when available.

On 16 December we said:

1. Hilton Buenos Aires (Headquarters Hotel, block of 300 rooms)
2. Holiday Inn Express Puerto Madero (30 rooms)
3. Sheraton Buenos Aires (140 rooms available)
4. InterContinental Buenos Aires (150 rooms)
5. Sheraton Libertador Hotel (70 rooms)

Buenos Aires is not Vancouver, Berlin, London, Paris or San

Francisco.

It's more like Dublin, if you recently attended the ICANN conference
there.


   Q - Are hotels artificially limiting availability of the IETF

block

by
only releasing parts of it to the web booking?
       I??ve seen hotels do this for other events.  While the whole

block

maybe 500 rooms, they release them in 50 room blocks as the
       reservation block fills.  This creates the lucky 10th caller
scenario, where if you hit it at just the right time you win.


That's not the case here, or anywhere we have negotiated agreements.

We strive to contract for 600 on a peak night at the so-called
headquarter's hotel,
but it depends on where we are. If we are in an area surrounded by
hotels, and
at lower price points, we might contract for 400 on a peak night, and
overflow
hotels for another 200 - 300 rooms on peak to get 780 rooms on peak.

Typically if we don't get our target room block it's because there's
another group
at the hotel, or sometimes it's because the hotel is concerned about

the

risk
of setting aside 70 - 90% for a group they've never done business

with.

This concern
is also typically reflected in the cancellation provisions for guest
rooms they will
sign up to, and/or when they start cutting back the number of rooms

in

the block.
All of which is evident in our first meeting in Latin America and

Buenos

Aires.

For those who managed to make a reservation outside the IETF block,

but

at a
higher price, we are trying to get you in the block at the IETF rate.

Another 4 or so IETF contracted hotels are in the works and will be
announced
as soon as they are ready.

Ray


-glenn


--
---
Toerless Eckert, eckert(_at_)cisco(_dot_)com