Hi John - At 01:39 PM 8/22/2014, John C Klensin wrote: >Perhaps no one actually cares. But, if any corporate or >organizational travel departments get access to your note and >respond, e.g., "we thought this was a boggle, you said it >wasn't, this proves that the IETF gives significant >consideration to vacation opportunities in selecting locations >and negotiating contracts" and pushes back on attendance, it may >be time for the IAOC to carefully (and transparently) review how >selections are made and who is making them. I think at this point the IETF has a pretty good track record of being pretty much everywhere. Occasionally, we're going to end up someplace "vacationy" like Hawaii. Poinint that out to the powers that be and explaining that yes, it's Hawaii, but its also an IETF and I fully expect to be spending way too much time closeted with the standards geeks even though sunshine beckons. Lots and lots of us travel substantially for the IETF and for work to the point that families get stressed. Having Ray et al look into the possibility of leveraging the IETF contacts (at no cost to the IETF or any of its members) to get better rates for an in-conjunction vacation for said families seems to me to be a reasonable thing and should be appreciated rather than condemned. As we've been told, and I'm sure you know, lots of factors go into selection of venues. One of the more important is "ability to handle a group of this size", others are "good international transport connectivity" and "a willingness to let us take over their network". Fortunately, "a place so horrible that no one would go there unless forced" is not one of those criteria. We selected the IAOC to be our eyes and ears for the selection process. Maybe you should stand for nomination to that body if you continue to have concerns about how selections are made? As for the cost of getting to/staying in Hawaii - if I averaged out the cost of my various IETF plane tickets over say the last 5 years, I would say that this is probably pretty close or below that average. I would also say that the hotel costs are comparable and that the travel times are within a sigma of my average over the last 5 years. So while I appreciate your need to say what you said, I'm not quite sure your basis for saying it holds water. Ray - Thanks! I'm not going to be taking advantage of the offer, but I appreciate the effort. Mike