SIGIA-L Mail Archives: SIGIA-L: Hotel and location for the IA S
SIGIA-L: Hotel and location for the IA Summit in SF
From: David Robert Austen (dausten_at_hoosier.net)
Date: Wed Feb 07 2001 - 16:49:13 EST
May I weigh in? My experience with that Grand Hyatt hotel and its
Burlingame location (near the SF airport) was very positive, and I
feel that its location lacked little - and, in fact, gave much. In
fact, I recall hearing not one plane in the air when I opened my
window for fresh air and very big view of the bay each morning. Not so
bad, as they say in Minnesota.
This hotel (not really near the SF airport) was in a pleasant
location, and not at all like an airport hotels you'd find at O'Hare
and Midway in Chicago, for example. (See my hyperlink to works by
Dante for impressions.) www.airtravelwithdante.usa
Not far away there was an exquisitely lovely walkway in a park-like
setting that wound for some distance along the bay.
There was also a train into SF, but the hotel staff did not seem to
know about it; instead, they directed people to go back to the airport
and get an expensive, crowded shuttle from there to the city! Bad move
for the wallet and the watch, and I hope not many got caught up in
that.
The attractive, restored Caltrans train station with service to SF was
just 5 minutes, away by free shuttle, in Burlingame. Some folks just
walked to Burlingame - and Burlingame itself was a lovely little town
with great restaurants and shops that sold much more than just
souvenirs and baubles. (These local restaurants were an important
alternative to the over-priced meals at the Hyatt.)
No, this advice does not help now, and it won't help until we use that
hotel again. But I thought this alternative to big-city digs was a
nice idea. And I doubt we'll often be that lucky with large hotels in
general.
I would like to add that I once spent a few months living in San
Francisco and I have now visited there more times than I can remember,
on both business and pleasure. Our Burlingame hotel, with its
atmosphere - and the town center of Burlingame - were are a *relief*
when compared to San Francisco when not "at its best." This is a city
of very high crime; I know of a *group* of tourists body-searched by a
gang, not far from cable car line. It is tempting to just think of the
San Francisco in those Ricearoni ads.
http://www.melo-online.com/pics/ricearoni.jpg
I wish I had thought to provide these tips to you all much earlier,
and perhaps the future we attendees can volunteer ideas on the Web
sites announcing conferences, as well as on a flip chart at the
conference itself. We can do better, I suppose, but it will largely be
a matter of what we do ourselves, providing ideas and advice for each
other.
Knowledge management, of a sort.
:-)
Regards to all.
David Robert Austen
RH> Just quickly replying to a couple of Peter's points:
RH> We have chosen airport hotels for ease of access.
RH> We have chosen weekends because:
RH> - Weekends minimize time out of the office
RH> - Weekends make the hotel and air less expensive
RH> The evaluation forms had a number of comments against meeting on weekends.
RH> I would like to hear more, especially in light of the fact that hotel rooms
RH> would probalby be about $50 more per night during the week and you can
RH> figure out what increase you might have had in airfare.
RH> Dick Hill
RH> At 10:20 PM 2/6/01 -0800, Peter Merholz wrote:
>>I think the ASIS Summit deserves a lot of constructive criticism. I heard
>>from more than one that they didn't quite get out of it what they'd hoped.
>>
>>On the upside: This proved to be a good networking conference. Got a chance
>>to meet a lot of people.
>>
>>Some criticisms by type:
>>
>>LOGISTICS
>>+ Location
>>Airport hotels suck. Last year in Boston, and this year in SF, makes you
>>feel stranded. Particularly as the conferences are on a weekend, and, well,
>>you wanna go out weekend nights!
>>+ Weekends
>>I know this is to accommodate academics who have classes to teach, but it's
>>really quite a drag to have your weekend taken up with a conference. For
>>those of us working solidly M-F, it means we get no break from work-related
>>stuff for two straight weeks.
RH> Executive Director
RH> American Society for Information Science and Technology
RH> (as of Sept 27, 2000)
RH> 1320 Fenwick Lane, Suite 510
RH> Silver Spring, MD 20910
RH> FAX: (301) 495-0810
RH> PHONE: (301) 495-0900
RH> http://www.asis.org
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2
: Sun Nov 23 2003 - 22:54:30 EST
|
