Had some conversations yesterday, and I thought I would
share what I have found out in terms of some cost of participating in this
event:
Registration fee: none
Hotel Amilcar (where I am staying): 26 dinar/night (
price)
Taxi ride from Amilcar to Kram/Palexbo: 3 dinar (average)
Coffee from machine: 1
dinar
Mineral water from machine: 1.5 dinar
Soda from machine: 2.5 dinar
Coffee from café: 2.5
dinar
Meal at restaurant: 25
dinar (takeaway) or 35 dinar (eat
in)
SIM prepaid card: 10 dinar
SMS cost: 0.6
dinar (local) or 1.5 dinar
(international)
Cheapest stand at ICT4All Exhibition: 8,000 dinar
Rental of LCD projection screen: 500 dinar/hour
Cleaners’ wages (mostly, if not all, women): 8 dinar (morning shift) or 12 dinar (night shift)
Security guard’s wages (mostly men): confidential
Cost of non-normative expression: potential
eviction from
There are more points of interest, like the cost of
decorating the stands (some have very elaborate screens, audio and visual
systems, nice chairs etc), printed materials, connectivity, erection of the
Summit and Exhibition space, colour-coordinated suits for staff and volunteers
etc etc etc. According to a source who wishes to remain anonymous, GL Events, a
company based in France sub-contracted to do work for the Summit, flew in 120
employees just to fix up audio-video infrastructure alone, and the first crew
came in 5 months ago. I am wondering how much the total cost of building up
these sprawling white tents cost, or hiring of the buses for the shuttle
service, the planting of the trees, the printing of the Tunisian President’s
picture to grace the streets…and I wonder how the payment for this eventually
trickles down to you, me and the countless people who have no idea of what WSIS
is about, nor have a chance to care.
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Oops, just realised that the cost of the hotel was probably 126 dinar instead of 26 (which sounded suspiciously cheap anyway =D). APC paid a bulk price of 86 (circa) dinars for each shared room, but from other conversations I had, hotel rates were definitely 100 dinars and up.
Wonder where the sub-contracted crew from France stayed in their 5 months sourjourn...
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