It may be a pain trying to get around the city this week and next, but DEC, looking for $1,000m of additional business from its $20m DECworld extravaganza, is not the only one counting on the event to charge the coffers. Boston and surrounding communities are expecting to make some money too, AP reports – the exhibition is expected to bring $26m in direct spending, with a multiplier effect that could pump up to $55m into the area’s economy – pity no other local computer company has enough clout to make that kind of impact on the community. Use of the QE2 and the Oceanic as floating hotels has given DEC an aggregate 2,000 additional rooms, but with 27,000 visitors expected and 15,000 DEC employees in town, that scarcely does much to take the pressure off the hotels on-shore. And berthing on the QE2 costs $180 a night – per person. Some of the visitors are pretty exotic too – early shogs included the Sultan of Oman’s personnel director looking for equipment to automate the accounts of the royal household – and a quartet from the Taiwanese national Bureau of Investigation. Each gets a personal password to try out the kit on display, check for messages in the DECWorld electronic mailbox, ask for more data on specific products, keep up with the scheduled events and scan a list Boston attractions. What, amid the soft lighting, soft couches and potted plants brought in to make the World Trade Center on the harbour look inviting, are the visitors making of the event? By midday on Tuesday, Hassan Al-Raessi was looking dazed. It’s just too much, said the man in charge of the 13,000 staff for Sultan Quaboos ben Said of Oman.