So, I’m looking into booking my trip to ASA. For me to book through travelocity right now, a flight into atlanta and stay at the conference hotel for 3 nights it costs $637. For me to book through the ASA, it costs $617.55 for the hotel. What are the chances I’ll get a flight for $19.45?
scatterplot 
Maybe the taxes at the two airports, if there are no connecting flights, with enough left over for a copy of 1945, the remaindered Newt Gingrich novel.
And the ASA will have to book into Atlanta again in two years because once again they won’t fill their hotel quota.
Does anyone else no longer wonder why, or wonder which ASA directors are getting kickbacks from the hotel?
LikeLike
While I don’t want to defend ASA fiscal management, I’m pretty sure part of the issue about hotel room prices is the cost of convention space (the meeting rooms) which are typically offered to conventions at a price that includes convention attendees buying a certain number of rooms (at higher prices than can be obtained elsewhere). However, for the hotels to offer prices to people on the Internet to undercut what they are asking the association members to pay to support the convention seems crazy and counter-productive, if the purported goal is to recover the costs of providing rooms for the convention.
In 1979 or 1980 or so, the Southern Sociological Society had a meeting in Atlanta at which the hotel refused to honor prepaid and guaranteed convention reservations, offering nothing more than the addresses of local motels (and a refund, in the case of prepaid reservations). This made it easy for the SSS to go along with an association vote to boycott Atlanta on the basis of non-ratification of the ERA.
LikeLike
My understanding is the same as OW’s, that staying at the conference rate is how participants “pay” for the conference space itself. I believe Michael Burawoy sent out a message with essentially that message during his presidency.
I don’t know if this is the same when we meet at convention centers, as we did in Montreal and Boston. IMHO these are much better venues anyway, as the hotel conference rooms aren’t set up all that well, and the “agora” space promised by the hotel lobbies get so crowded that they are useless both to us and to to the poor feckless tourists unlucky enough to have booked rooms in the same hotel! I wonder how the price model would change if conference registrations had to pay for the conference space and we were just on our own for hotel rates?
LikeLike
I guess the lesson is, “be a good citizen, and bite the bullet…” Perhaps I’m thinking of this all wrong. Another way to think of it: “you’re paying a premium to defer costs of others who can’t pay as much.” That second way makes me feel better. Because I’m not so much doing anything for ASA as I am, say, students in the discipline.
It burns a bit, though…
LikeLike
Well, I’m critical of a hotel that is so blatantly undercutting its contract with the ASA. In other years/places (Montreal is one I’m sure of), I have known of people who wanted to book through ASA in a convention hotel, the “convention” spaces were sold out, so my friend booked on line and got a cheaper rate than the convention price. This made no sense to me at all, if the convention price was higher than the on line price, why they were “sold out” to the convention.
LikeLike
Beware you online bookers…Those bastards are doing what they can to reap profit from their supposedly low rates. I just got burned for two nights in Atlanta for SSS. I missed the convention deadline, and did NOT get a good rate on the convention hotel. Hotels.com booked me for two nights when I asked for one (I was heading to Athens for the rest of the trip to race bikes), they did not change my reservation when I noted a week in advance that they had booked the wrong dates (and I supposedly had a 24 hour backout), and they refused to do anything about it. There even seemed to be collusion between the Hyatt and Hotels.com in claiming that I stayed two nights! I was in Athens on Friday….
So, having been screwed so severely, I can now say that I might as well have simply booked however for at least ten years….though in this case I missed the conference deadline, it wasn’t like I was looking for deals.
LikeLike
Cost aside, ASA won’t fill the quota because we are going back to Atlanta, which was hugely unpopular last time. ASA needs to figure out a different funding formula OR ensure that we are in a city that draws high enough so that there are enough people who stay within the block.
LikeLike