The SPR Annual Meetings are held during the week of the Memorial Day holiday because the hotel guest room rates are lower than earlier in May or later in June. The 2016 SPR Annual Meeting will be held at the Hyatt Regency San Francisco, 5 Embarcadero Center, San Francisco, CA. and the 2017 and 2018 SPR Annual Meetings will be held at the Hyatt Regency Washington, 400 New Jersey Ave., NW, Washington, D.C. The SPR Board of Directors has planned the annual meetings at these locations for several reasons. These Hyatt hotel properties provide very suitable facilities for the SPR annual meetings. Due to the size of the annual meeting which draws approximately 800 attendees all conference programs and activities can be held in the hotel property. This provides a conducive atmosphere and physical space for networking. The meeting room quantities and sizes provide amble space for the presentations held during the conference program. In addition to the plenary sessions which are held in the largest meeting room that can accommodate 600 people there are 12-14 concurrent sessions that take place over the three day conference. The concurrent session meeting rooms can accommodate 50 to 125 people. Each hotel also has a large space for the three evening poster sessions that can accommodate up to 100 poster presentations per session. Each Hyatt property also has the audio visual equipment and staffing requirements to hold a successful annual meeting of SPR’s size. The locations of these two hotels in Washington, D.C. and San Francisco are convenient for U.S. and international travelers. The Washington, D.C. hotel located on Capitol Hill near Union Station and the Metro is convenient for DHHS staff to attend, as well as, federal policy makers and administrators. Both of these venues draw the highest number of attendees. Both hotels are in jurisdictions with a smoke-free policy for public spaces. Furthermore, both hotels are listed on the Unite Here website as socially responsible union hotels. Additionally, by booking multiple years at Hyatt Hotels SPR can negotiate competitive hotel guest room rates and meeting room and food and beverage costs.
