hotel prices at conferences

Well, the hotel rates and the conference registration fees are two entirely separate things. As was touched upon before, hotel rates are dependent on the amount of business the group is giving them, as well as the time of year, and also interacts with the booked meeting space. For instance, if a group fills up the entire hotel with attendees, they may get their meeting space for free. Or, if they want lower rates for attendees, then they may have to pay for the meeting space. Or, if they've booked lots of expensive catering functions, they might get a lower rate.

I frankly don't think that my own organization is hard-nosed enough in negotiations with these hotels. They tend to go back to the same ones and get taken for granted. One year the New York Hilton (which has hosted many times) relocated a whole bunch of sessions to the Sheraton. My best guess is that the other group (which I'm fairly certain did NOT pre-book my group) had more economic clout, so we got moved instead. There was some compensation for that.

Also, groups are given certain numbers of complimentary rooms for, say, every 50 booked. This enables the hot-shot board members to get free suites and the like. All of these things are put together in the contracts.

I can speak with some small authority as I worked my way through grad school at Hyatt hotels in reservations and front desk.

These days, I never pay the convention rates. I use Priceline and get a much cheaper hotel nearby, away from the chaos.

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