This is not practical for many. I’ll likely skip Asia meetings going forward as these are personal expenses unless there is a real compelling reason for me to go. Its also a long time to be away from a young child if you leave them home as I did for Singapore. Since my son is 2+ now, it’s a choice whether I bring him or he stays home and I’ve been trying to bring him on every other trip. I hope this helps to better understand the impact here, you do lose people, particularly those not in leadership roles. Most companies don’t help with these expenses. I suspect people would be willing to pay a reasonable amount.
Honest, I understand that if you have a small child, it is expensive to travel. But there's more than one way to address that issue. Some venues are a lot more expensive than others, with the difference between what the IETF pays for a meeting at a cheap one and an expensive one being $200,000 or more. (See the IAOC meeting reports for examples.)
As a hypothetical example, imagine we invent a new rule that if you (the general you, not just Kathleen) are bringing a small child, we'd waive the registration fee and comp you a second room. If two or three people per meeting took us up on that, it'd cost something like $5K, which would be a bargain if it made it practical to use a hotel that cost the IETF less and had a lower room rate.
We've been getting an increasing amount of grousing about the costs of attending meetings, so if we can keep the cost to attend down, that would appear to be a good thing.
R's, John
