Re: [Debconf-team] Accomodation/Pricing meeting - some ideas for agenda
On 26.02.2013 16:16, Philipp Hug wrote:
1. Should we set an absolute limit on the number of persons in the big
and medium rooms or just try to move people to better rooms if
available?
Impact Yes: If we set an absolute limit, the total number of possible
attendees will be limited. Assuming we use 2/3 of the beds of big and
medium we'll loose 1/3 of 159 beds, which are 53.
So the total number of possible attendees will be reduced from 325
(ignoring camping) to 272.
Impact No: Some people might be more unhappy about the standards in
the big rooms.
One of the weak point of Le Camp bid was the lower maximum number of
attendees.
I would only set an hard limit at 1/5 - 1/6. BTW I prefer more attendees.
It is also frequent to have turnover, so possibly we will reach the hard
limit (for any limit) only for one or two days
2. General pricing ideas
a) Do the self-paying attendees need to cover their full cost?
* Covering their full cost would mean paying their room for the whole
rental period, as we probably can't rent it to another person and have
to pay it anyway.
Undecided. Previously the professional fee was per week, but people
could ask to have per day rate. Which IMHO was not so transparent (we
didn't publicized much).
But possibly we could sell them as upgrades.
* Should it also include costs from daytrip, formal dinner... or do we
assume this is sponsored?
Formal dinner is offered to all people (sponsored and not sponsored).
Daytrip could require an extra fee.
For our case: we could include it in the professional/corporate fee
(which we could rename as "volunteer contribution for
food/accommodation/general expenses)". Which maybe could also answer the
Gaudenz' question about donation/allowing to pay for food....
* Can we charge less than what we pay for some room categories to fill
them better? e.g. trying to sell the dorm really cheap to selfpaying
students?
Yes, also considering that Le Camp prices are already mean values, e.g.
guard rooms (double room) have same price of the next big room.
* should we differenciate between self-paying and professionals, were
self-paying only pay differential costs + some extra?
What it is the difference?
BTW: "Corporate" was: the pay the company. "Professional": pay the
attendee (but she has an income)
b) Should the goal be maximum profit or to make the distribution of beds fairer?
"fairer", which for me is also a "economic" distribution, so that the
target is not to have overbooked categories.
3. Upgrades
a) Should we allow upgrades during reservation?
Impact Yes: booking and billing system required because manual
processing will be too much work. Clarification needed about which
categories can be booked.
Impact No: some people may be unhappy
I prefer to have upgrades maybe only on the reconfirmation phase, if
rooms are still available.
b) Should we allow upgrades on-site, if availability permits?
Impact Yes: better use of good category beds, less crowded cheap beds.
First come, first serve? People who arrive later will be
disadvantaged.
OTOH the first comers will use such bed for more times. Ev. we could
sell them online few weeks before DebConf.
4. Sponsored Accomodation
Which categories are used for sponsored accomodation?
In general, I think we should reseve the following rooms for sponsored
attendees: nordique_medium down to sleeping_bag_big
What will you get, when you book sponsored accomodation?
Ideas:
a) nordique_medium down to sleeping_bag_big, in order of confirmation
b) assigned by magic scheme (cate)
c) allow attendees to choose. (for a fee?)
c)
In any case at registration, people should choose nordique or
sleeping_bag: it should be clear the bedding and requirement from the
beginning, so a) and b) are not suitable (but maybe with real magic)
I suspect that not all people prefer smaller rooms: the large rooms down
to the hill have a nice terrace where one could eventually sleep with a
beautiful lake-view.
5. Pricing proposals for professional/self-paying attendees:
a) Simple single/double/other
nordique_single: CHF 60 pp / 60 p room
nordique_double CHF 40 pp / 80 p room
sleeping_bag_double: CHF 35 pp / 70 p room
stay_with_sponsored: CHF 30 pp (or maybe even CHF 25)
If we fill all the single/doubles we would make around 11k for rooms +
20k for food, which is more or less what we have in the budget + the
extra money from the stay_with_sponsored category
Note: we need to reserve some of those rooms for attendees with
special needs. I'd prefer if those are in the double-category as we do
only have 4 singles.
Special needs usually have a double room (they are accompanied). But
I've no problem on giving them also some bigger rooms, it the rooms (and
surrounding) are suitable.
# Should it be possible to book a double for 1 person by paying for
the full room? (if yes, we need to decide if breakfast is still
calculated by person, then)
IMHO it will reduce the number of attendees on nice rooms, so eventually
as late upgrade if there is availability. I would include breakfast
twice (just for simple calculation, see it as a luxury tax)
b) extend this down to other categories:
nordique_small: CHF ?? pp
nordique_medium: CHF ?? pp
if we have the 2/3 rules of point 1, the nordique categories will be the
most frequent bed type, so we could split the 6*8 beds into a own category.
Note: I would like to have at minimum 3 or 4 rooms per category to have
a room per category for different preferences (gender etc.)
ciao
cate
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