Evan, My experience as a previous ICANN meeting host is that the vast majority of attendees have their trip paid for by their company, university, etc. They typically ask for the hotel "where the Board is staying", no matter the price. Others (ALAC and sponsored participants from less favoured countries) travel on ICANN budget. I can only remember a few individuals attending the Luxembourg meeting, and in most cases it was for a single day. I think it is unrealistic to expect an individual to cash out 3 or 4000 dollars for a full week of meetings, if his only interest in the ICANN process is a to worry about his 12 dollars a year domain name. This is exactly why ALAC is needed. Patrick Evan Leibovitch wrote:
Hello everyone,
We've now found out that the hotels used for the Delhi ICANN meeting are outlandishy expensive: http://del.icann.org/hotels
It's one thing for ICANN to claim to want public participation; but is its process really accessible when locations are chosen that are so expensive? When was the last time that "cost to attend" was a factor when choosing an ICANN meeting venue? The Delhi venue may be inexpensive to those who live within India, but seemingly prohibitive to anyone else who's neither subsidized nor on an expense account. Even as a regional venue, that seems mind-bogglingly expensive
-- Patrick Vande Walle Check my blog at http://patrick.vande-walle.eu Jabber me at patrick@vande-walle.eu