They Travel For Sightseeing For Tourists

They Travel For Sightseeing For Tourists Tourists. They travel for sightseeing, recreation, visiting and non-business activities. They want to learn about the customs, the history and the language of every place they visit. They usually travel in groups. We have to provide them with any information that may need about the area, the transportation, any local events that may take place in the surround area etc. and to make them feel at home. They are looking for recreational facilities, food and beverage services and interior design. That kind of guests are usually very price sensitive. Families. They usually travel on weekends and they want a short break from their everyday routine. They are looking for a quiet place to relax and enjoy their time. They are looking for recreational facilities, food and beverage services and the hotel should offer baby-sitting facilities, special meals for kids and an animation team. The elderly. They cant look after themselves as the years pass, so they are looking for a hotel with pleasant and friendly environment. We have to be kind and patient with them and to look after them without giving them the impression that we behave on them like children. Business travelers. They are almost the most important travel market for many city hotels and this is the reason why the hotels who target this market have designed specific products and services to cover their needs such as a quiet environment. Most of business travelers do not like to stay in hotels because after a hard day they prefer to stay in a quiet place to rest and to relax rather than a noisy room in a hotel. Another thing that they worry about is their messages and how well the hotel can handle this. We have to offer them facilities such as: meeting space, computer services, internet access etc. Business travelers are usually not very price sensitive and often utilize hotels food (especially room service), beverage and recreational facilities. They considered desirable and profitable market and is an important segment because of its steady level of demand at high room rates. Delegates. Meeting and conventions usually attract hundreds of people and this is the reason why we have to convince the meeting planner to choose our hotel. They are looking for fast service and they dont like to stay in queues. Meeting and conventions have to do with people who attending seminars, trade association shows etc. The length of stay for meetings ranges from 3 to 5 days. We have to provide them a conference center for the meetings, computers services, internet access and when we have a large group some discounts are necessary because in this way we can attract them to visit again our hotel as leisure travelers. We have also to provide them in house banquet and cocktail receptions. Describe the importance of welcoming a guest and the techniques that should be used. Always the first impression plays the most important role when a guest arrives at the hotel and influences the rest of his stay. The receptionists should always be warm and friendly when they checking in the guests to make them feel comfortable like at home. A good greeting can make a guest feel better. A well-spoken receptionist by giving a smile of welcome from a charming succeeds to create a warm and friendly atmosphere also has to be able to recognise the guests personality and to adapt in order to satisfy the guests expectations. Some techniques that should be used are: keep eye contact and smile, be clear in your speech and use a pleasant tone of voice, avoid speaking too fast or too slow, use the guests names, always be polite and kind, always start and end with a positive note, always be: friendly, interested, helpful, never mechanical, never different and never impatient. There is a big possibility that when a guest leaves from the hotel with a good impression he will come b ack and he will be a good advertiser for our hotel. Describe the guest registration process and explain its importance. We have to follow several steps for the registration process. The guest registration process begins with the pre-registration activities which accelerate the registration process, guests can verify personal data and the time of the check-in the guests have only to sign the registration form. When the guests arrive we greeting and welcoming them and after we create the registration record and verify the guests identity name, the permanent address and the telephone number, the date of arrival and the departure, number of registered persons, method of payment, passport and signature. After this process we assign the room rate and we establish the method of payment. We continue by issuing the room key and ask the guests for any special requests. When all these finish we escort the guest to his/her room. The guest registration is important because by completing this form let us know who stays in our hotel, especially during in an emergency situation. With guest registration we can also learn if a guest is a repeater, if he has already visited another hotel of our company. Also with this form we can find some information about the guest needs (in case that he is repeater), such as smoking or non-smoking room, allergies, any special requirements that he use to have. Explain what guest history files are and why hotels keep them. Guest history files are files in which the management records important information of all his regular guests and show any special requests and expectations that a guest have in case that the guest has stay once at the hotel. Hotels use to keep guest history files because these files help the management to improve the guest service and also to remind personal data of its repeater guests. These files contains details of credit cards, the date of the first stay, how many times a guest has stay at the hotel and how many nights, how much the guest spent in the different departments, how much he has spent on each stay and the room types that he prefers to stay. Also these files record any special needs (newspapers) and preferences that guests might have. Explain up-selling and the techniques that can be used Up-selling is the use of specific words and phrases that will lead the guest to buy something he would not otherwise have bought. We can succeed in up-selling if we think that is a way of helping out the guest by offering him a satisfying solution to cover his needs. Some techniques that we can use when we selling a room are: Qualify the lead. Asking questions and try to understand exactly what your prospective guest is looking for, keep an eye contact and let him talk without interrupt him. Built a relationship and make your guest feel comfortable. By doing this you create a friendly atmosphere and gives you the advantage for a better sale. Make a presentation of your property. Provide brochures and prospects for what you offer and convince your guest that you know what you sale. You have to know your product inside and out and also to know your market area and your competitors rates. Close the sale by asking for the sale. Dont be in rush for giving any discounts that probably your guest will ask, just focus on value. Follow up the sales visit by sending questionnaires. This is a good way to find out if your guest left satisfied from your hotel and gives an indication that this guest might return in the future and also bring and other guests with him. A satisfied guest is an advertisement for our hotel.

Planning and Measuring Performance Essay

Planning and Measuring Performance Planning and Measuring Performance This paper will discuss Hospital Corporation of America’s (HCA) goals of achieving industry-leading performance in clinical and satisfaction measures and recruiting and employing physicians to meet the need for high quality health services (University of Oregon Investment Group, 2011). This paper will also discuss which tools would be most effective in measuring the organization’s performance against the determined standards. The actual standards that HCA would use to measure the first goal of achieving industry-leading performance in clinical and satisfaction measures are set by The Joint Commission. According to Kicab Casta eda-Mendez (1999), achieving improved clinical performance and satisfaction measures requires performance measures in three areas: * To lead the entire organization in a particular direction. * To manage the resources needed to travel in this direction. * To operate the processes that make the organization work. According to Kicab Casta eda-Mendez (1999), these measures are: * Strategic–to drive strategies into action and change the organizational culture. * Diagnostic–to evaluate the effectiveness of these actions and the extent of change. * Operational–to improve continuously. The most effective tool to measure these improvements is benchmarking. Benchmarking against the top healthcare companies will determine if HCA is achieving industry-leading performance in clinical and satisfaction measures. Without benchmarking HCA could not determine if the company was leading the industry or if they were at the bottom of organizational ladder. HCA’s goal of hiring physicians to meet the need for high quality health services can be measured by determining the number of physicians need to accommodate the number of patients, determining the specialties/ sub-specialties the physicians are needed in, as well as measuring the retention rate of the physicians. The Balanced Scorecard would best fit this goal. The Balanced Scorecard allows the company to see the projected percentages and the actual percentages of the measurements. It also helps the company see what needs to be changed and gives direction for those changes. HCA can use benchmarking and the Balanced Scorecard to measure the different aspects of their goals. HCA will also be able to see the areas that need improvement and have some guidance into making these changes. With these tools HCA will be able to make an effective go at achieving their goals. References University of Oregon Investment Group (May 6, 2011). Hospital Corporation of America. Retrieved from http://uoinvestmentgroup. org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/HCA. pdf Casta eda-Mendez (1999). Performance Measurement in Healthcare. Retrieved from http://www. qualitydigest. com/may99/html/body_health. html

New Public Management Approach

The Concept of ‘New public management Approach’ New public management (NPM) denotes broadly the government policies, since the 1980s, which aimed to modernize and render more effective the public sector. The basic hypothesis holds that market oriented management of the public sector will lead to greater cost-efficiency for governments, without having negative side-effects on other objectives and considerations.The last two decades to 2006 have been associated with a fundamental shift in the principles of public sector management in all industrialized countries. This had, in turn, been a product of a general reinvention of the role of government, its agencies, the means by which services are delivered, and employment practices within public sector organizations. At its core, this has been associated with a move away from a traditional model of public administration towards variants of the ‘new public sector management’ model.The traditional model of public ad ministration, based on the doctrine of the separation of powers, was associated with the delegation of a specific set of functions to public administrators in the implementation of policy and the expenditure of public funds. A central principle associated with this model was the idea that public service employees were independent from the political process. Their role was encapsulated by the maxim of providing advice ‘without fear or favour’. This capacity for independent advice was assured through the idea of a career in the public service and explicit norms of behaviour and professional conduct.It has also been presumed that public service employees were less likely to be motivated by extrinsic rewards, more likely to identify with value of service to the public and the provision of public goods, and have a strong commitment to principles of justice, fairness and equity in discharging their duties. This traditional model of public administration was associated with an expansive view of the role of government, which prevailed throughout much of the twentieth century.This view produced a significant role for government in regulating economic and social relations, owning productive assets and producing goods and services, in a range of areas in the period until the mid to late 1970s. From that time, the role of government and public sector organisations came under sustained scrutiny, with the result that governments privatised production of many goods and services previously seen as the natural domain of government, such as essential services; withdrew from the direct control f production of goods and services funded by the public purse through corporatization and outsourcing; and encouraged the contestability of markets in which the government had previously been a monopoly producer. This general reorientation of the role of government has been associated with changes to internal organizational attributes and management practices within public sec tor organizations. This ‘new public management’ has shifted the focus from public service to service delivery.The principles associated with new public management have been informed by the idea that public service needs to be more responsive to both the preferences of beneficiaries, citizens who pay for service provision through tax, and politicians who represent the collective will and make policy choices. From this perspective, ministers are seen as analogous to customers, and citizens to consumers. New public management has been informed by economic doctrines that have advocated privatization, contestability in the delivery of public goods and services and, where possible, the provision of these goods and services through the private sector.For the core public service, this has also been associated with significant reforms to public employment systems and the norms of what constitutes professional public service. For Australian public service employees, this shift ha s involved the displacement of core legislative protections associated with independence by ‘value statements’ and ‘codes of ethical conduct’, along with protective legislation for whistleblowers. More generally, this shift has occurred within the context of a decentralization of managerial responsibilities for workforce planning and human resource management to individual departments and agencies.For middle managers, this has meant a significant increase in responsibility for both ensuring probity in managerial practice and dealing with the ethical issues and conflicts that arise in dealing with ministers and stakeholders, the responsible expenditure of public money and the fair and just delivery of services to the community. Developments Some modern authors define NPM as a combination of splitting large bureaucracies into smaller, more fragmented ones, competition between different public agencies, and between public agencies and private firms and incenti vization on more economic lines.Defined in this way, NPM has been a significant driver in public management policy around the world, from the early 1980s to at least the early 2000s. NPM, compared to other public management theories, is oriented towards outcomes and efficiency, through better management of public budget. It is considered to be achieved by applying competition, as it is known in the private sector, to organizations in the public sector, emphasizing economic and leadership principles. New public management addresses beneficiaries of public services much like customers, and conversely citizens as shareholders.In 2007, the European Commission produced a white book on governance issues whose objective was to propose a new kind of â€Å"relationship between the state and the citizens,† reform governance, improve public management and render decision-making â€Å"more flexible. † Criticism Some authors say NPM has peaked and is now in decline. Critics like Du nleavy proclaim that NPM is ‘dead' and argue that the cutting edge of change has moved on to digital era governance focusing on reintegrating concerns into government control, holistic (or joined-up) government and digitalization (exploiting the Web and digital storage and communication within government).In the UK and US NPM has been challenged since the turn of the century by a range of related critiques such as Third Way thinking (see Anthony Giddens) and particularly the rise of ideas associated with Public Value Theory (Mark Moore, Kennedy Business School, John Benington, Warwick Business School) which have re-asserted a focus on citizenship, networked governance and the role of public agencies in working with citizens to co-create public value, generate democratic authorisation, legitimacy and trust, and stress the domains within which public managers are working as complex adaptive systems with characteristics which are qualitatively different from simple market forms, or private sector business principles.In his book Bad Samaritans, economist Ha-Joon Chang claims that â€Å"increased NPM-inspired reforms have often increased, rather than reduced, corruption,† as a result of â€Å"more contacts [of state-sector functionaries] with the private sector, creating new opportunities for bribes† and future, direct or indirect, employment in the private sector. Chang claims that â€Å"corruption often exists because there are too many market forces; not too few. † Robert Nield, a retired Cambridge economics professor and a member of the 1968 Fulton civil service reform committee, has stated, in reference to civil sector reforms implemented by British PM Margaret Thatcher, a pioneer and strong proponent of NPM, â€Å"I cannot think of another instance where a modern democracy has systematically undone the system by which incorrupt public services were brought into being. â€Å"

Essay An Analysis of Eric Schlossers Fast Food Nation

The New York Times bestseller Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal is one of the most riveting books to come out about fast food restaurants to date (Schlosser, 2004). Fast food consumption has become a way of life for many in the United States as well as many other countries in the world. The author Eric Schlosser an investigative reporter whose impeccable researching and bold interviewing captures the true essence of the immense impact that fast food restaurants are having in America (2004). Beginning with McDonald’s, the first fast food restaurant, which opened on April 15, 1955 in Des Plaines, Illinois to current trends of making fast food a global realization McDonald’s has paved the way for many fast food†¦show more content†¦1). Many citizens are concerned and website such as fastfoodmaps.com and thedailybeast.com and rank how many fast food restaurants exist in cities across the nation. Explaining just about one quarter of the United States population eats fast food every day , he claims that fast food restaurants have â€Å"not only [changed] the American diet, but also our landscape, economy, work force and popular culture†¦and the consequences have become inescapable regardless † how often you eat it ( Schlosser, 2004, p.3). According to DATAMONITOR a market research firm’s Fast Food Industry Profile,† [in] the United States fast food market grew by 0.2% in 2009 to reach a value of $71.4 billion. And, the compound annual growth rate of the market in the period 2005–09 was 3.7%† showing even years after the book was written, fast food continues to take a greater market share of consumer’s food dollars (â€Å"Fast Food Industry profile†,2010, pg. 12). As fast food restaurants continue to market their products in schools, American schools continue to decline in the world’s ranking and are in the double digits depending on what source you view. That would be no surprise to Eric Schlosser as he explains that â€Å"Children spend about seven hours a day in school, one hundred and fifty days a year, in school†¦[and] today the nation’s fast food chains are marketing their products in public schools through conventional ad campaigns, classroom teachersShow MoreRelatedWhy the Fries Taste so Good1013 Words   |  5 PagesRhetorical Analysis In the excerpt â€Å"Why the Fries Taste So Good† by Eric Schlosser, Schlosser deeply examines the process of one individual farmer and his process, not to mention takes it as far as going to the International Fragrance and Flavor facilities to see what truly does make the fries taste so good. He does a good job of hitting each individual appeal as a writer in order for us as readers to accept the information he’s handing out. Even in Ian Brailsford’s review of Schlosser’s excerpt,Read MoreEssay on Challenging Beliefs in Schlossers Fast Food Nation544 Words   |  3 Pagesthought-provoking book, Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser argues that Americas fast food franchises have played a major role in contributing to the obesity and ill health of Americans. This paper shows how Schlosser argues that fast food has contributed to uncontrolled development, negatively impacted American culture, and have had a largely negative impact. The effects of Fast Food Nati on on American society and politics show that Schlossers thesis is largely convincing, due to both his careful analysis and hisRead MorePeer Production: An Agent of Good or Evil?1700 Words   |  7 Pagesdecisions. Both James Surowiecki and Andrew Keen examined peer production based on content quality, and its economic and societal impacts. However, Surowiecki’s strengths of peer production outweigh Keen’s weaknesses when compared to Joseph Reagle’s analysis of Wikipedia. Information Quality Firstly, peer production produces better information quality than that of experts. James Surowiecki (2004) argued that merging the independent ideas of many people (who are knowledgeable about a topic) is usefulRead MoreMcdonalds Strategic Analysis12693 Words   |  51 Pages* MCDONALD’S, THE SIMPLE JOY OF BURGERS. TABLE OF CONTENTS MCDONALD’S, THE SIMPLE JOY OF BURGERS. 1 1 ABSTRACT 3 2 COMPANY INTRODUCTION 4 3 FAST FOOD INDUSTRY ANALYSIS 5 3.1 Franchising Industry Analysis 6 3.2 The Industry Future Perspective 7 3.3 Industry PESTEL Framework Analysis 9 3.3.1 Political Aspects 9 3.3.2 Economic Aspects 9 3.3.3 Social Aspects 9 3.3.4 Technological Aspects 10 3.3.5 Environmental Aspects 11 3.3.6 Legal Aspects 11 4 Mcdonald’s Company