Re: IUG West AND East?

[Richard Blood <rblood@xxxxxxxxxx>]

I think that it would be a mistake to split the IUG annual meeting into 
East Coast and West Coast. The cost of hotels depends more on the size of 
the city than whether it is on the East Coast or West Coast. The cost of 
airline travel is NOT a linear function depending on distance traveled. 
Often, because of airline competition, the cost of flying to major hub 
cities on the two coasts is cheaper or almost as cheap as flying to a city 
that is on "your" coast--especially if you opt for an intermediate stop 
(since coast-to-coast non-stop flights tend to be more expensive).

As for the meeting on the West Coast, can't we go to San Francisco even 
though it costs a little more for hotel rooms? My intent is not to offend 
anyone, but let's face it: meeting in places like San Jose, Santa Clara, 
and Oakland (there's no there there) are not very exciting--especially when 
compared to The City--the heart of the Golden West. Meeting in San 
Francisco would still allow people to avail themselves of cheaper flights 
into and out of the Oakland Airport, since there is a BART train station at 
the Oakland airport that takes you inexpensively to downtown San Francisco 
in about 40 minutes.

Yes, I live in San Francisco (you can probably tell that from my e-mail 
address), but I'm not too biased. I hope I've not offended East Bay and 
South Bay folks.




At 11:02 AM 4/30/2003 -0700, you wrote:
>I know it's much further from the East Coast to the West Coast than the
>other way around :-)
>
>Seriously, add up your total bill for the conference, including travel,
>hotel, meals, the conference itself, and miscellaneous. Assume your
>air tickets were purchased well in advance.
>
>Now what if the conference were closer? How much would you save on air
>travel? What percentage of your total cost would be saved? Not much?
>
>Now assume a conference half as large, with fewer economies of scale for
>meeting rooms, hotel rooms, etc. So some fees would be higher.
>
>Seems to me like false economy.
>
>Besides, you wouldn't get as many vendors there at both shows...
>
>Regards,
>....Bob Rasmussen,   President,   Rasmussen Software, Inc.
>
>personal e-mail: ras@xxxxxxxxxx
>  company e-mail: rsi@xxxxxxxxxx
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