On Aug 29, 2010, at 2:55 AM, Glen Zorn wrote: >> What you save in transportation at the tail end can be totally destroyed >> by hotel and dining costs, and the IETF has to pay more for meeting >> facilities. > > Speaking of which, I hope to be the first to note that paying $192 for a > room in Beijing in November is highway robbery... What Glen said. Also, the secondary hotel is not much better at $147. The 15% service charge increase these to $220 and $169 respectively, which is way beyond the budget my company gives me for all locations in the world besides NYC. If this was some place in the US, I could easily find a cheap hotel chain nearby (like I did in Anaheim). In Europe, it's a little more difficult, but still doable (thanks, Google Earth). In China, I have no idea where to even look. Sure, I can find a list of cheap hotels in Beijing, but I have no idea where they are in relation to the meeting venue, or whether the staff would speak English. The warning to have your destination written down in Chinese, because the taxi drivers don't speak English doesn't inspire confidence either. For most business meetings, all this doesn't matter. You either have a host that helps you out, or your Chinese sales office helps you out. For an IETF meeting, we don't really have either of these. _______________________________________________ Ietf mailing list Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf