On Mon, Jan 4, 2016 at 10:39 AM, Eric Gray <eric.gray@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
One odd thing is that there are other groups who can't tell you what week they're going to have a meeting any time in the next 6-7 years, but who can seem to get block sizes for a larger percentage of the attendees at meetings this year than the 15-25% we seem to get for IETF meetings anymore.
And this has been a worsening trend. I've attended most IETF meetings in the last 20 years (I have the t-shirts to prove it) and I can remember when it was still possible to book a room at one of the meeting hotels at the IETF rate at least up to the block cut-off date (as opposed to an hour after the hotel information is made available).
Something changed for IETF hotel bookings about the time of the bubble-burst and most of us don't have any visibility into what that is. We can speculate, but there seems to be empirical data that supports the idea that it is not an unsolvable problem.
[MB] My personal thought here is that the change has been due to the fact that we seem to be going to more exotic venues and also to venues that are more touristy destinations - e.g., Orlando during one of the busiest weeks of the year, Europe in the summer, Hawaii in November, etc. I realize that it's a minority that prefers Minneapolis, but I'd like to see the data in terms of length and degree of participation and contribution to IETF that goes along with the preferences for various destinations and it would also be nice to see how many people that prefer more popular tourist destinations travel with companions that would have no interest whatsoever to spend time in Minneapolis in the winter. I understand a bit that the popular touristy destinations attract more paying participants but I question whether they attract more long term contributors. I do have to say that I like the fact that the meeting rooms aren't nearly as crowded when we meet at touristy locations.
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-----Original Message-----
From: ietf [mailto:ietf-bounces@xxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Ted Lemon
Sent: Wednesday, December 16, 2015 11:52 AM
To: Melinda Shore; IETF Discussion
Subject: RE: Hotel situation
> Why are we continuing to have hotel issues meeting after meeting
> after meeting after meeting?
Because we can't force hotels to give us large allocations. This was discussed at length at the last plenary. Getting venues that do everything we want is hard.
That said, I think you'd make a great candidate for the IAOC next time if you feel like trying to disprove this point! :)