Etiquette for Invited Talks

A question from a reader in Office Hours

Photo by Dom Fou on Unsplash

Today I’m responding to one of my dear readers who posted this question in Office Hours:

Hi! I was just wondering what is the normal level of support offered to someone who has agreed to fly out to speak at a colloquium. My own department meets guests at the airport, puts them up at a hotel that's both within walking distance of our office and to multiple restaurants of various price points. I'm sure the flights themselves are coach, but we offer our guests multiple choices and try to work with their schedules. We make an effort to make our guests feel welcome, inviting them to meals and such.

I just had what a bad experience and I don't know whether my expectations were unreasonable or this was sub-par, since this was my first opportunity to speak at such an event. Despite repeated requests, I only received detailed information on my hosts' expectations the day before the event. In the absence of any contact from my hosts, I got myself to the event (no directions, just a link to a very general university map) and basically was dismissed after my part of the event was done.

After I agreed to speak, I was assigned a flight that required me to get up at 4 in the morning because it was the cheapest on Expedia--no option for changes. The connections were excruciatingly poor--both coming and going, I had to literally run between terminals. (A measure of the stress is that my watch says my heart rate hit 158 during one of these runs.)

I was put in a hotel room with no refrigerator or microwave and there were (so far as I could tell) no restaurants except the hotel's within walking distance. The MI&E was excruciatingly low. For example, I was reimbursed $6 for breakfast, when the hotel coffee alone was $6 a cup. Lunch and dinner were reimbursed at $14 and $16 each, when the hotel prices started at $26 and $35 respectively. The honorarium was $500--with which I have no problem--but more than $100 of that went to meals at the hotel restaurant (non-alcoholic, no dessert or fancy dishes--just expensive). Another third will, of course, go to taxes.

Am I right to feel taken advantage of or is this simply the norm?