I’m actually kind of surprised that this doesn’t come up more often: According to the Erie Times-News  (Pa.):

A group of Erie County hoteliers filed a lawsuit Tuesday that challenges the
legality of the county’s 5 percent hotel-room tax.

The hoteliers questioned the constitutionality of a tax they say they must
collect to help pay for the proposed convention center hotel.

"The existing hotels have been unfairly burdened with a tax that is being
used to fund a competing new, publicly owned and subsidized hotel," the lawsuit
said.

The rationale on the other side is, of course, that the new HQ hotel will bring in more business for everyone, that a rising tide will raise all the boats, not just the Queen Mary. Interesting…

This is a tough one, especially for associations who are reluctant to raise their meetings’ registration costs for fear attendance will drop. I just read this article in Inc. which, though it’s talking about retail, has an awful lot of interesting food for thought for meeting planners.

How do you determine what people are willing to pay? Study after
study has demonstrated that when it comes to purchasing decisions,
people are irrational. In one classic study, researchers asked
consumers whether they would be willing to travel an additional 20
minutes to save $5 on a calculator that costs $15. Most said yes. Then
they were asked the same question about a $125 jacket. Most answered
no. Now, rationally, $5 is $5, whether you’re buying a calculator or a
jacket. But it’s seldom that simple, according to Richard H. Thaler, a
professor at the Graduate School of Business at the University of
Chicago and author of "Mental Accounting Matters," an article published
in 1999 in the Journal of Behavioral Decision Making.
"People make [purchasing] decisions piecemeal, influenced by the
context of the choice," writes Thaler, who won a Nobel Prize for his
work in behavioral economics.

As it happens, the greatest influence on the context of a
purchasing decision is whether the consumer believes the price is fair.
Expectations play a big role in this. In a 1985 study conducted by
Thaler, people were asked to consider the following hypothetical
situation: You’re lying on a beach on a hot day and you crave a cold
beer. A friend offers to get one and wants to know what you’re willing
to spend. When she offers to go to a small grocery store, the median
response is $1.50. But if the friend is buying the same beer at the bar
of a fancy resort hotel, the price jumps to $2.65. Context and
expectation drive the price up nearly 80%. Because we expect to pay
more for a beer at a resort, we’re willing to pay more.

So, how do you deal with irrational decision-makers and their expectations? The article says, and I agree, that communicating the real value, and showing why it should supercede the customer/attendee’s perception of that real value (only if it’s lower, for goodness sake!), is a good start. Anyway, read the whole article–it’s a great primer on pricing.

Tim Bourquin, who writes the most excellent TradeShowStartup blog, e-mailed some interesting verbiage he ran into lately while searching for info on a hotel he’ll be staying at later this month: "Treat yourself to bathroom when the day’s work is done."

Uh oh, you have to wait until the end of the day for that particular "treat"?? I, like Tim, never realized this was a luxury to be experienced as a reward for a good day’s work. Someone, call in the copywriter paramedics!

Check out this article from MSN Careers: It makes event planning sound like  non-stop party! While the job has its perks, I seriously doubt this really reflects a day in the life of most event planners.

(Via the MIMlist listserv)

I’m not sure how I feel about a report on Blogspotting (the new Business Week blog) about Pennsylvania having paid bloggers roving around and posting their experiences on their blogs. As Stephen Baker says, "Trouble is, a few of them appear to be relentlessly cheery, like
brochures traveling under another name. A dose of tedium, frustration,
or fear would make them more believable."

I don’t know as how I’d give much credence to people who are being paid to write about the entity that’s paying them. What I would like to see, though, is some meeting planners blogging about their experiences with various facilities and destinations they use for their events. Now that would be interesting reading! As long as they weren’t getting paid to say nice things, which is kind of what I infer from the Blogspotting post. What we don’t need is more PR drivel; what we do need is some real conversations about various destinations, warts and all.

(Hat tip to Tom at FuelDog)

Update: Bill Wulff of MeetingsRadio reminded me in the comments below that just such a site does actually exist, and has for a while. It’s called LoudTalk.com. I just went in and tried to get ratings on two of my all-time favorite hotels–Grove Park Inn in Asheville, N.C., and the Fairmont Banff Springs–but it didn’t have any info on them. This sort of thing is only as good as the input it gets. If you’re in the mood to spread the good (and bad) word about hotels and other venues and services, go to LoudTalk and type away. I just bookmarked it so hopefully I’ll remember to check back in once in a while. Another one, though not specifically meetings-related, is HotelChatter.com, which can be fun to check out. That one seems to have gotten a little more traction for some reason.