Small Conference Cost Cutting Tips

In terms of conference planning one of the key things to keep in mind is that pricing is almost *always* more negotiable than most people realize.

Small numbers of rooms you can guarantee the hotels are appreciated but they may not give you much leverage in price. However even for a single room the price is generally negotiable unless the area is sold out. First, consider your location carefully if price is important. During huge events like CES Las Vegas room rates on the strip are 2-3 times and more what the same room would cost normally, especially during midweek low pricing when Las Vegas offers some of the best hotel bargains anywhere.

Unless there are some huge events mid week in winter should be a good time and a good price approach is to start at Kayak.com (price comparison tooly) and look for 3-4 nice venues with reasonable prices and then call them directly to firm up details and ask for either lower pricing or better amenities.

Let your competing venues know you are shopping around and then go with the best offer. For example if you need a meeting room that will usually cost more but you might get it free thanks to the room block.

Another cost cutting device can be to use nearby restaurants as your meeting place and pick slightly "off" times for the meals (when they are slower and don't need the space).

Larger Restaurants generally have meeting rooms and if you promise enough meals to them they'll generally provide the room for free although firm up the times with them so you don't get kicked out after eating. Hotels have different economics so I think eating "out" is often less expensive than having the hotel cater things.

Thai Airport Protests End - Flights to resume Thursday

Thailand's Bangkok passenger flights will resume Thursday December 4th and freight traffic has already resumed. Political protestors who were accusing the current Thailand government of corruption had closed the airports almost a week ago and have been camped out since then, ending the airport "sit in" today. Hundreds of thousands of travellers are still stranded and Thailand's tourist industry may suffer greatly from the actions.

Weather Delays Plague Eastern US Airports

Nice weather heading into the US Thanksgiving holiday didn't last through the weekend, and travelers today are experiencing delays of up to many hours as a large storm hammers the east coast and delays are reported for many airports.

Check flight delay status either with your airline directly or here at the FAA website flight delay application: http://www.fly.faa.gov/flyfaa/usmap.jsp LINK

PDX Free Wifi Rocks ... and so does MFR Free Wifi

It is important to acknowledge when a business brings good technology to the table and I'm just throwing out kudos again to my two favorite Oregon Airports: PDX in Portand and MFR in Medford serving all of Southern Oregon and some of Northern California.

Both MFR Medford and PDX Portland have free wifi throughout the terminal complexes, and this makes travel so much nicer as you have a chance to catch up on some email, surf the web, or ... blog about how great free wifi is to have in an Airport.

Sure, eventually widespread use of cellular broadband will make airport wifi less important, but paying many airports the $9.95 "daily fee" for 30-60 minutes of Wifi is painful for reasons that are hard to articulate well given that the advantages clearly are worth that cost. I can only hope that the free Wifi airports see something back in terms of advertising support for the Wifi (seems rare), or an increased chance of business travellers who like this service (hard to measure, but seems somewhat likely).