Further to Al's comments: It's worth noting that it's often just as hard to get from a city's airport into that city's centre as it is to get from that airport to other cities. Since airports are only rarely actually in the city centre significant public transport is almost always needed, which is always in danger of being confusing when you are in a foreign country and signs are not in your native language. Furthermore even when you arrive in the city centre you often have a considerable journey ahead of you to get to your accommodation, something which is much less of a problem in small cities (which are usually the ones without airports).
The issue for Wikimania is not the distance, it's effective communication and help for those journeying that distance.
Tom
From: wikimania-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimania-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Al Tally Sent: 02 August 2008 15:07 To: Wikimania general list (open subscription) Subject: Re: [Wikimania-l] Comments
Florence Devouard wrote:
However, it seems a fair point to say that in the future, we should choose a city where there is an international airport.
I would not treat this as an absolute requirement, but if we must travel a significant distance from the city with the primary international airport, the difficulties of getting people to the other city need to be addressed.
Please *don't* discount cities without international airports. We are currently working on a bid for Oxford, that does not have an international airport, but excellent links to London ones. The problem with Alexandria was that while the links are good from Cairo, we relied too much on the free shuttle provided by the team, but they were, to be honest, pretty hopeless. Besides, I wouldn't want Oxford to lose out for that one detail, as the airports aren't more than 2 hours by road away, and even less by train.