Another Group Leaves San Francisco

Staff -- Tradeshow Week, 10/10/2005

For the second time in a year, the American Anthropological Assn. has relocated a meeting originally scheduled in San Francisco due to the ongoing hotel labor dispute.

The group plans to hold its 5,000-attendee November 2006 meeting in nearby San Jose, Calif., rather than at the San Francisco Hilton. The board elected to move after members said they would be reluctant to attend a meeting held in a hotel involved in an ongoing labor dispute.

The association said the last-minute decision to move its 2004 meeting from San Francisco to the Atlanta Hilton resulted in a scaled-back program, higher registration costs, poor attendance and "a major financial loss to the association."

In a letter to the San Francisco Hilton, AAA Executive Director Bill Davis stated that the group needed to move next year's meeting now in order to properly market it in a new location. The AAA is still booked in San Francisco for 2008 and 2012.

The American Sociological Assn. recently decided to move its 2006 meeting from San Francisco to Montreal.

So far, the long-running dispute between 4,000 members of Unite Here and 14 downtown hotels has cost the San Francisco Convention & Visitors Bureau more than eight meetings. Together, they would have drawn 43,300 attendees using 84,665 room nights and generating a $49.7 million economic impact, according to CVB estimates.

Unite Here is pushing for a 2006 contract expiration that would line up with expirations next year in Boston, Chicago, Honolulu, Los Angeles, New York and Toronto, as well as Monterey and Sacramento, Calif.