News Archive

Kendall Berry, Treasurer-elect 2021–2022

The Health Physics Society (HPS) annual meeting – attrition rates, conference hotels, and why where you stay matters. Did you know that hotel nights offset some of the cost of the conference? When HPS contracts with conference hotels, we commit to a specific number of hotel night stays for the conference. Based on our commitment to the hotel, fees for meeting room rentals, audio/visual services, and catering are also contracted. But what happens if we do not fill our hotel nights contract? HPS expenses increase. HPS has to make up that money to the hotel either by directly covering the unpaid nights or spending more for things like catering or meeting room rentals that were previously complimentary but are now charged full price.

Yes, we contract for attrition rates whenever we can, which means we can miss our hotel nights' target by a specific percentage and have a mutual agreement that serves both the hotel and the HPS in that event. If we don't even hit our attrition rate, then we, the HPS, will owe the hotel $$. Bottom line, you should stay at the conference hotel to help ensure financial viability of our HPS meetings.

Left to right: Barbara Hamrick, Dan Sowers, Gus Potter, Emily Caffrey, Jama Vanhorne-Sealy, Tracy Ikenberry, Matt McFee, and Andy Miller
Photo courtesy of Kendall Berry

However, there is an intangible reason to stay at the conference hotel. There is someone from the HPS in the lobby during nearly all waking hours, making it easy to network and catch up with colleagues. Chances are you'll bump into fellow conference attendees getting a cup of coffee on the way to the convention hall or grabbing a refreshing beverage at the end of the day at the hotel. These small moments to network can lead to lifelong collegial friendships, which I believe is one of the biggest benefits of attending our conferences in person.

When you are able to join us in person for a conference, I hope you will stay at our conference hotel so that we can help HPS financially and so that you can increase your opportunities to network and connect with other HPS members during the conference. Looking forward to seeing you in Spokane this July!