Is AIG paying cancellation penalties for the 160 meetings and events it was going to pay $8 million to hold before it got into trouble over a badly timed incentive trip? That’s what one person who commented on a recent article outlining the cuts wanted to know–as do I.

And, like other commenters, if they aren’t paying penalties, I worry about the fallout from all those dollars being pulled out of the meeting facilities they were going to use.

Anyway, it’s an interesting discussion (and also, check out another related thread here).

The MeCo listserv is abuzz right now with an interesting discussion of whether or not Ritz-Carlton should waive a cancellation fee for the AIG incentive to its Half-Moon Bay property the embattled financial company recently pulled.

Some think it would be good PR for the hotel to waive the fee and do its part not to suck up more of the taxpayers’ dollars. Others, like me, think it would just be a perpetuation of the bad business practices that got us into this mess to begin with. And I don’t think the public really cares to the level that meeting planners do about the minutiae of this whole AIG incentive story–90 percent of what I’ve read/heard not only got it so wrong at the start, but continues to not understand the difference between an incentive and an executive retreat. Sigh. So as a PR thing, I don’t think the hotel would get much mileage from it anyway–definitely not enough to make up the difference–and so should treat it like any other canceled program.

Here’s one of the best roundups I’ve seen yet about how the credit crunch will affect the U.S. hospitality industry. Written by hotel legal eagle Jim Butler, it includes thoughts both optimistic and pessimistic. For planners, I thought this was a key note:

In public we say “Hold the rate.” That makes sense as long as we can do it. However, I may have courage to hold the rate in New York or Washington, DC, but I may not have courage to do so in Milwaukee when my competitors start cutting.

If it’s not happening already, I expect to see rates slipping in second- and third-tier cities any day now. I’m also hearing more and more talk about the return of the buyer’s market overall. We’ll see.

And they’re not just for hotels. Cruise lines also are thinking fees might be an interesting way to scare up some extra cash by charging where no cruise line has charged before (at least as far as I’m aware)–the main dining room.

According to this report on Tripso, the main dining room at one line now is charging $14.95 for an “all-natural” steak. As Janice Hough says, “Supposedly, it is a trial to see if customers want “all natural” beef and that eventually the steak will be moved to the alternative dining room “Chops” that already carries a surcharge.”

She continues, “Yeah, right. And if Royal Caribbean determines that people will pay extra in the main dining room, I am sure they will go back not to charging for anything there as soon as the trial is done.”

Having never been on a cruise, I wasn’t surprised to hear they charge extra for some things outside the main dining area, but for some reason I thought that everything in there was included. I wonder who/what/where else will be the next front on the fee wars?

Hey, maybe the rest of us can start charging fees, too. I’ll write a good story for my regular salary, but if you want me to write a really good story, it’ll cost you an extra really-good-story fee? Can you even imagine working that way? It’d be a career death sentence in my business.

Thanks to Bill Geist, one of my favorite new-to-me bloggers, for the pointer.

Hotel Chatter poses an interesting questions: What hotel amenities do you consider totally useless? While I disagree with them on the uselessness of ironing boards and in-room coffeepots (while fully understanding the dangerous potential of the latter), there are some things I could do without.

The giant stack of ad-driven brochures on the city, for example. While I suppose it might be useful to some, I’d infinitely rather find a restaurant through word-of-mouth or its cyber equivalent. And I am always shuffling the stack from one place to another–it’s always in the way, wherever I put it. I’d also do away with shower caps (I hope they don’t replace those every day and throw away the unused ones. Talk about waste!). I’d go with just one kind of soap, too, instead of having face soap, shower soap, hand soap, etc. And all those itty bitty pillows–begone!

And you?

The eagerly awaited winners of the 7th annual “America’s Best Restroom” contest have been announced. Below is a photo of the women’s room sink at the third-place finisher, Brio in Rockford, Ill. They’re all funky, and I’m sure very functional, too. This one does make me feel a little seasick, though (and this is supposed to be heaven-themed; the men’s room is themed to make the little guy with the pitchfork feel more at home).

Thanks to Dianne at the MiForum listserv for the pointer!

Here’s an interesting study (download from link) from the National Business Travel Association that compares lodging, rental car, and meal taxes in the top 50 U.S. cities. When you compare hotel, car, and meal taxes over a one-day period, the highest rates are in Chicago; Nashville, Tenn.; Charlotte, N.C.; Seattle; and Houston.

The lowest taxes can be found in Honolulu, Hawaii; Portland, Ore.; Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Fort Myers, Fla.; and West Palm Beach, Fla. (Hartford, Conn., comes next, sandwiched between two more Florida cities, Tampa and Orlando).

The report also breaks it out by airport hotel/car/meals, and by discriminatory increase over general sales taxes. Interesting reading–those taxes can add up in a scary way if you’re not paying attention to them.

I didn’t go schwagging at the ASAE and The Center’s expo, but I ran into lots of people laden with bags and bags of stuff. Sure, there were lots of other goodies, but stuffed animals and t-shirts seemed to be the biggest thing this year. Of the ts I saw, the only one I’d actually wear outside of a gym was offered by Columbus, Ohio as part of its campaign, No Yeti here, but Columbus is worth the trip.” The idea, the article says, is “to grab potential visitors’ and meeting planners’ attention with outrageous attractions that can’t be found in Columbus — or any other city in the United States for that matter. Once they’re hooked, they’ll learn what the city actually does have to offer.”

I take it back: ASAE and The Center had wicked cute ones made up for the press. They’re bright yellow with lettering across the back that says, “my editor thinks I’m on assignment.” Yup, I’ll be wearing that one. I’m just now retiring my well-loved but tattered ASAE Earth Wind and Fire t from the year the final evening was an EWF concert at Red Rocks outside of Denver.

If “environmentally friendly” is near the top of the list on your RFP, you might want to take a look at EcoTrotters, a site that hopes to get travelers to write environmental reviews of hotels they stay at. There aren’t a lot of places in the database yet, but I’m sure it’s just a matter of time. It also has some decent content, including this article on how to tell if your hotel is really green.

While it’s not on the official form for hotel reviews by and for meeting planners at the Meetings Collaborative, I’m sure that’s something that more planners will be commenting about as the movement to green meetings gains momentum.

(Thanks to Hotel Chatter for the pointer to EcoTrotters.)

A couple of items in this morning’s Boston Globe caught my eye: First is this article about what happens to the loose change that people don’t remember to pick up on the other side of security. It goes to pay for screeners and equipment. From the article:

The TSA has been allowed to pocket the change since 2004 when it lobbied Congress to change the law so the money could be used within the organization instead of going to a general fund in the federal treasury. Since then, the nickels and dimes have been adding up: Between Sept. 30, 2004, and Oct. 1, 2007, the TSA accumulated more than $1 million from 450 US commercial airports - a tiny fraction of its $18 billion budget.

And then there’s this one about how Dinner in the Sky, a Belgium-based company that offers the view without the room by hauling diners, table, food, and servers 180 feet in the air by crane, is coming to the U.S. Frankly, just thinking about it makes my stomach flip-flop, but I guess it might be the ultimate experience for a group with no fear-of-heights-challenged members.

And speaking of making my stomach uneasy, someone who shall remain nameless sent me a link to this video for Extended Stay Hotels. It’s a little sleezy, very uncomfortable, and made me want to whoops my coffee. So of course, I have to share it with you, with a warning that you really probably don’t want to watch it.

And via a Twitter tweet from Guy Kawasaki, I learned about a travel-booking site I hadn’t heard of before: ESkyGuide.com. I haven’t had time to play with it yet, but I plan to check it out.