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We’re working on a project with some folks at the CHR, and they are travelling to a conference to present their courses and talk about the process. Part of that presentation will be a live demo of the Moodle-powered site and some of the cool Breeze content we put together for them.
The hotel (which shall remain unnamed for now) sent them a sheet, asking what technical services they would like for their 1 hour presentation. Included in that sheet was this portion, listing the costs per service:
I had to resize it to fit here, so it’s a bit hard to read, but the basics are:
- Internet connection (wired): $350
- Internet connection (wireless): $350
- Telephone: $175
If that’s not the definition of price gouging, I don’t know what is. That’s insane. Their internet charges, according to these rates, would be over $10,500 per month. And that’s in Canadian money, not that whimpy US stuff!
I could almost see how they could justify these rates if the conference was some hodey-dodey high flying billionaire’s club meeting, or maybe a Web 2.0 pre-bubble-bursting lovefest. But this is a medical education conference.
If I had to pay $350 to have an internet connection during a presentation, I just plain and simple wouldn’t do it. But these folks have committed to giving a live demo, and the only way to do that is to grab some ankle and ask for more.
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13 Responses to “Hotels and Price Gouging”
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Can they not use a cell plan for the period of their presentation? Certainly not going to be $350!
One word - screencast! While it’s true there are some scenarios that are hard to replicate, most of the “live demos” I’ve seen would be easily (and often better) accomplished by pre-recording them and simply playing that back as part of their presentation. The other thing to note is that charges like these are the reason every good conference planner should have at least a couple of wireless routers stashed away in their prep bag - left to the hotels, each freakin’ attendee would be asked to cough up $300 to check their email.
@Chris: this is Canada. Using a cell phone for data for an hour would cost about $5000…
@Scott: they wanted to be able to “branch” in response to attendees questions, so a screencast would be to restricting. I was going to suggest Moodle-on-a-USB-stick, but that’s too geeky for them. They’re most comfortable just coughing up the cash so they don’t have to worry about anything extra for the presentation. These hotels should be ashamed, though. It’s supposed to be the “service industry” and they’re doing everything they can in order to squeeze money out of the people they’re trying to serve…
Funny I experienced the exactly same thing 1 week go. Before went to Educause, I was invited to present at a symposium, located in a hotel downtown Vancouver. When I learned the organization had to pay $250 for my wireless internet connection, I was outraged. Then I realized it’s quite common among Hotels. They actually took the extra effort to block available wireless signals in the meeting areas. Quite amazing.
One thing you can try is set your Firefox refresh date to 90 and cache size to 999MB and stay off line. It caches quite a lot of contents from the sites. Including dynamic pages from CMS like WebCT etc. But there is some trick in doing it… Good luck!
Oh yes, hotels love to charge through the nose for internet access.
Thankfully the ones I’ve done conferences in have at least had the guest wifi available in conference areas, and sure it’s still stupidly expensive at ~ €20/day, it’s less than the prices quoted above.
My rule? The more stars a hotel has the more they will nickel & dime you for _everything_.
[...] can read the full story here This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 30th, 2007 at 10:08 am and is filed under hotels. You [...]
I think you are underestimating the complexities of setting up a phone line.
This is just why I use my cell phone more as a wireless modem than as a phone. It’s gotten me through all kinds of demos and other weird network situations. With 3G, it’s almost as good as a “real” connection!
@Brian: right. because you just KNOW they’re laying a fresh line each time, not just plugging a wire into a jack in the wall…
@Karen: I think that’s a great backup plan, but data plans are generally too expensive here in Canada to make that feasible. Yet…
It’s simple- shop hotels- and move. Tell them exactly why too. I find it funny that Marriott is still charging- while the Drury Inn has free wi-fi. It’s a free market economy- and if the hotels want to gouge- they can loose the conference.
Another option- in Dayton we just had “Clearwire” enter the market- it’s a wireless modem operating on funky frequency. $40 a month gets you near DSL speed. Check into alternates.
Another option- contact the local DSL providers- or ISP’s- and see if they want to be named a “Sponsor” in exchange for donating access.
@David: the presenters and attendees don’t control where the conference is. Sure, they could all boycott the conference for a year or two, and things might change. But that seems a bit heavyhanded. Better for hotels to just Not Be Evil™…
Producers of the conference should be supplying the wifi. If they can’t get it included with the deal- they should move it.
I agree- the “not be evil” part-
I’d name the hotel- and shame them.
Let them learn their reputation has to be earned every day.
I’ll hold off on the semi-public humiliation until my colleagues have finished their presentation. Although I’m sure their network lackeys don’t read the blog, I don’t want to rock the boat until they’re in the clear