Hi Fouad, Most of the problems you describe are not limited to travelers from developing economies. I would really prefer not to segment the world more than is already being done; travel headaches -- such as missed check-in dates -- can happen to anyone. Bad travellers' luck does not discriminate regards to country of origin. On 21 July 2010 19:18, Fouad Bajwa <fouadbajwa@gmail.com> wrote: I would like to step in to share perspectives and recommendations as a
person who travels from the developing world.
Small nit, but Pakistan is not on the UN list of lesser developed countries. Compared to the US it's way behind, but its GDP/person is more than double that of ICANN host country Kenya. Everything's relative :-) First and foremost, it is very hard to pay for air-ticket bookings on our
own
According to Alan's proposal, nothing changes for those who want to let ICANN do their bookings. The proposal merely suggests some extra flexibility for those who can (and like to) manage it. Issue 2 also implies that when we travel, we have to reschedule/allocate a
lot of changes in our work plans, engagements, commitments etc and we should be on a boot-camp style or concentration camp style regime for travelling.
Careful, some people could be very offended by that statement. If it was a true concentration camp regime you might not make it to your destination -- ever. That was an extremely poor way to make a point. As for changes in work plans, you're an ICANN volunteer leader and knew what the time demands were going to be in advance. Deal with it, just like the rest of us. Or feel free to avoid the travel, save the time and use the remote participation facilities. Sometimes those kind of conflicts happen, but that's not -- and should never be made to be -- ICANN's problem. Recommendation 4: Eliminate Antagonist Behaviour towards Traveller's
Urgent/Unavoidable Circumstances
I've always found that ICANN staff -- at this level -- are human too. They mean well, and react nicely when not yelled at. I've had and witnessed my share of panics and all have been dealt with professionally. I have never encountered what I'd considered 'antagonistic' behaviour -- there are simply too many things that can go wrong, with all travelers, to single us out for bad treatment. Recommendation 6: ICANN should deploy an ICANN Travel Team Support Desk
right near the registration desk at all ICANN meetings that should be operative from the day that ICANN staff or travelers arrive. Period!
I disagree strongly with the need for a desk. ICANN travel staff are always on-call at the conference -- on-site long before we get there -- and are easy to track down (they usually have walkie talkies and at least have their mobile phones). IMO, having a specific desk will simply irritate the many stakeholder attendees who *didn't* get their travel subsidized without really creating any extra benefit we don't already have. It also puts unreasonable mobility limits on ICANN travel staff. If there's a problem just let the nearest At-Large staffer know. That system has always worked at every conference I've attended. The only occasional difficulty requiring a travel desk has been WRT airport-to-city transfers in some locations (Delhi comes to mind) and ICANN has generally dealt with those situations as well as could be expected. Every conference has something to teach. :-) - Evan