Arranging the accommodations

Accommodations

Conference Handbook - Accommodations

ACL requires accommodation in both dormitories and hotels. The total number of beds, at the present time, should be between 400 and 600 on every conference night, peaking in the middle.

Accommodation should not exceed US $100/night per room, if possible.

If the conference is held in a hotel, the meeting rooms are often provided at a discounted (or free) rate if enough room-nights are filled. Specifying the details of this arrangement is tricky; hotels sometimes have unexpected ways of interpreting the contract. The ACL Secretariat (Priscilla Rasmussen) has considerable experience in this area.

Some things to beware of:

• The cost of conference food, refreshments, etc.
• The cost of AV equipment, which usually has to be rented from the hotel
• The cost of additional services such as xeroxing, internet access, parking, etc.
• The cost of hotel rooms when not booked as part of the conference (room rates vary, and may drop below the conference ‘special’ rate, to the disgust of attendees). This requires an agreement in the contract that attendees will get the lowest room rate offered, or that if attendees do not book via the conference rate, but still stay in the hotel, their rooms are also counted toward the room-night total, etc. Such arrangements should be posted on the conference website.
• Do not sign a hotel contract with in which there is no cap on our liability. The cap should be what we would have paid if we just rented the space and nobody stayed at the hotel.
• Make sure that the Local Arrangements Chair and the ACL Secretary get a copy of the final hotel contract after it is signed.
• If the conference is held on campus, then care should be taken that both the dorms and the hotel(s) and close enough for walking (weather permitting), or else transport should be arranged.

Author: Eduard Hovy, 2000, from notes by Rick Wojcik and others.