Monday, March 25, 2013

Hospitality business management means a career as a hotel or resort manager. However, in addition to individual guests you will also need to wrangle big events. This is regardless of the scale and number of stars your venue has. This will be everything from conferences and seminars to full trade shows and conventions. Your venue's pricing really only effects the types of customers you will attract.


Generally speaking, as these events happen year round, they can be a lucrative source of off tourism season revenue, as well as a good way of filling up space in your hotel in the middle of the week. These clients differ from regular guests not only because events may take place in the middle of the day, while a hotel is generally otherwise used for sleeping, unless it is a residential venue, but also in the expectations of the client.


These will be a frequent enough occurrence, that you may even consider taking some event planning courses. Large venues will even have in house event planners to help clients consult before they rent, and decide on what details fit their budget, but if you are the main manager, smaller scale venues may leave it up to you. And, unlike renting rooms people will haggle. The large event halls and ballrooms of your hotel may have a fixed price, but clients will want different combinations of utilities and pricing. You will probably construct fixed price packages that make the best use of your venue's resources, but personalization always pleases guests and upselling is always a great source of revenue.


The smallest scale business events will be seminars, which may be one person, a room with chairs and some audio-visual equipment, but there are also corporate retreats, for planning sessions in a new set of scenery and morale boosting, and other multi-day events which will have some attendees staying as overnight guests. The biggest are conferences and trade shows, which will generally needs a combination of large and small rooms. You might even have a massive event hall lined with booths.


At all of these, guest will need something to eat at regular periods. There's a plethora of options, from simple pastries, through to gourmet lunch packs up to full service catered banquets. All this is within the skill set you'll cover in hotel management skill, but you may also be co-ordinating this with outside contractors. One quick hospitality business management tip: It's a lot safer for your guest to over order on food and donate the surplus after the event, than under order, as they are liable to blame you, as will the dissatisfied attendees.

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

A business college professor drilled into us that we should always "narrow our focus and stick to it". In general, it made sense like many of the guidelines in business you hear about but recently it has really made hit home with me. Talking with my business friends over the course of the year which has various careers in health insurance, financial planning, mortgage lending, business consulting and a host of other professions, I realize that all of us are approached or have been presented the opportunity to participate in projects or service requests which fall outside of our normal specialty. When business is less than full capacity, the first inclination is to take any business you can get your hands on; why not, if you have spare time to do it then why shouldn't you go after other similar types of business.


The issue is when doing something outside of your core service; there is usually some type of learning curve, time which has to be invested and follow through. You can't simply hang a new product on your shingle; you have to know and learn about it at some level to sell it with any competence. If you get enough of this same type of business, which initially did not fall in your main line-up of products, then you can perhaps consider making it one of your regular service offerings and you have automatically broadened your product business scope. Instead of just selling widgets A, B, and C, now you have A, B, C, D, and E to sell. If all of them are aimed at the same market group and they naturally blend in together you have a good mix. Still consider that you will have to market 5 products instead of just 3 which automatically increase your marketing expense. A printer friend of mine is a successful example of this; he started with standard paper printing products and now offers specialty imprinted items, banners and even car wraps and it all has been a good profitable blend.


But the problem is that more often, we get requests which come from different directions with no two being very similar. In the effort to get more business and satisfy more customers, you gradually become the "jack of all trades and the master of none". Viewed from the outside, the perception will be that you cannot survive focused on one main thing so you have to do many and your integrity and reputation suffers. One gentleman I've known for years offered financing for various projects, then he added merchant card services and a few months later he include home mortgage financing. Just recently in speaking with him, he justified his strategy by saying that if he offered enough services then he wouldn't have to say no to anyone. After that he added immigration services in helping immigrants get properly documented. He was like the fisherman with twenty poles in the water; problem was that each pole was in a different lake!


Here are 3 guidelines to avoid falling into the "I can do it all" category:


1) Identify your core services and products. What do you really want to do and what do you excel in? Identify your experiences and strengths and market only what you do best. If you are good at analyzing financial documents and think logically then don't try selling prepaid legal services or including them in what you do. Solidifying an 'elevator pitch' will help you narrow your focus because if you can't state your core business in a couple sentences then you either don't know what you are focused on or you're focused on too many things. Become the specialist and avoid becoming the generalist.


2) Learn to say "no". If you spend enough time networking, you are going to be approached to add some service or market some product or perhaps add a new feature to your core business. Be firm in letting people know you are only focusing on your core expertise. Even attending an information seminar on something which doesn't your business model is a waste of time. Discipline yourself to stay on track.


3) If you feel inclined to add a new service then always test market your new offering and only add one new service at a time. By only adding one element, you keep your test phase manageable and more importantly, you do not appear to be flaky and jumping around from service to service to your clients. Your goal is to always add another service which will help your clientele and improve what you already do for them. The test phase will also help you evaluate if there is a real sustainable market for your new product or only a unique few clients which fall into this category. In the interest of efficiency and effectiveness, you don't want to purse a tiny market with little growth potential.

Thursday, March 14, 2013



Giving participants a useful and impressive branded item on meetings, expos and international conferences is the best way to create a good and lasting business impression. It is essential then to carefully choose the promotional item that will best represent the goal and the image of your company.

When you deal with the corporate sector, a conference compendium can make for an excellent promotional item. This item usually made of leather, has a notepad, a pen, and a dual-powered calculator comes in different designs. It also has compartments for business cards and other significant papers, making it very useful to recipients.

Here are three essential tips to help you pick which branded compendium is best for you.

Think about the recipient. Before deciding on the materials of any items you plan to give, consider the user. Are they sales people who normally travel often? Or they are managers who stay more at the office? The kind of material must reflect their needs. Perhaps leather compendium will suit senior level manager and nylon with microfiber is suitable for sales executive.

Know your business commitment and design your promotional items to represent you goal. Those supporting the preservation of the environment must look into Eco-friendly products. Go for compendiums that have been produced from 100 percent recycled materials.

Keep it handy. The size of your conference compendium should be convenient enough to carry anywhere. They should easily fit into any luggage, bag, or brief case. If users will take them anywhere, the visibility of your brand becomes wider.

What should be included in your compendiums?

Perhaps the most essential organisational tool for many is the Post-its. People always find them very useful. Most of the time, they are expected to take down notes and write messages. These small pieces of paper will rescue them.

Include laser pointer. Doing presentations is easy using this tool. Rather than pointing finger, referring to projected slides with a laser pointer creates a more professional look. Be creative in choosing its colors, shapes and designs.

Tuck in some endearing coupons. A free tour of the city, free drinks or snacks. This all will be deeply appreciated.

For keeping people awake, you might want to slide in mint or coffee candy. Gums are not advisable as you might just find them stuck under the tables.

Other quirky items like a cute torch pen, watch, stress balls, chains or key holders.

Compendiums are the perfect items to create a lasting impression on clients and stakeholders so make sure you choose the right materials, design, and size well.

Sunday, March 10, 2013

Alien workers have played a very important part of the U.S. economy and throughout its history. The topic of illegal immigration often irritates a lot of emotion and has recently geared a lot of attention in the press. Immigrants are having more of an impact on the economy than ever before because of their large quantities in people. To many people, immigration issues revolve around economic arguments, such as the fact that immigrants will take work away from native workers at a much lower wage. With the foremost presence of illegal immigrant workers in the U.S., economists agree that there are many burdens and blessings that come with immigration, but they have all strained different conclusions in addressing the following questions with regards to illegal immigration:


1. How do illegal immigrants benefit the U.S. economy?


2. How do illegal immigrants damage the U.S. economy?


3. Can the U.S. address and solve these problems with illegal immigration?


4. Can illegal immigrants eventually become full citizens in the U.S.?


This review of the literature on illegal immigration and its impact on the U.S. economy focuses on these four questions.


How do Illegal Immigrants Benefit the U.S. Economy?


In a perspective article, Davila (2006) insists that immigration can indeed be good for businesses. The reason why it is good for businesses because immigration supplies labor at a relatively low
cost, though the real concern is how often that immigrants are paid substandard wages (Davila, 2006). Although immigration can be good for businesses, major businesses "are, of course, concerned with hiring illegals, especially given the senate proposals, which would place more emphasis on employers verifying that employees are legal immigrants" (Davila, 2006). However, many illegal immigrants bring hard work ethic to the U.S, which businesses are often taking into consideration to their open positions. Davila believes that immigration should be perceived as a way to improve our economy and use all possible resources at our will. This improvement of our economy brings the hard work ethic of illegal immigrants that should be highly rewarded (Davila, 2006). In retrospect, the conclusion of Davila is that it is important to continue to encourage those who want to come to the U.S. to do so legally and continue to contribute to our economy.


Although it may to true that many illegal immigrants are motivated to bring its hard work ethic to the U.S., it is however, uncertain that their authentic motivation is to tap into freely available resources. Enciro Marcelli believes that it is generally recognized that most illegal immigrants are more motivated to enter the U.S. to "build a better life for themselves and their families by securing a higher paying job" (Marcelli, 2005). There exist many common claims by the U.S. legislation on illegal immigration. Those includes: immigrations migrate to the U.S. to use its welfare program and public services and unauthorized immigrants take jobs away and depress the wages of, lower-skilled, minority workers.


In a study undertaken in the late 1980's by a team of University of Texas researchers using 1980 U.S. Census data, they reported that although "legal immigrants had a small negative effect on the wages of U.S.-born white workers in the U.S. Southwest, undocumented Mexican immigrants actually had a small positive effect" (Marcelli, 2005). During the same time of the research done by the University of Texas scholars, another group of researchers from the University of Toledo in the early 1990s used the same data. However, they investigated the impact of undocumented immigrants on the unemployment of U.S.-born minority workers rather than the impact of undocumented immigrants on the employment of U.S.-born minority workers. They found an incredible inverse relationship. This is because illegal immigrants as they concluded enjoy clustering in states where unemployment rates were lower. The researchers interpreted this finding as "suggestive of labor market complimentarily rather than substitution" (Marcelli, 2005). In rebuke, the conclusion of Marcelli suggests that illegal immigrants fill undesirable jobs only after more collectively groups of workers drift into higher paying occupations (Marcelli, 2005). This means there is no loss in jobs as immigrants do not take jobs away from currently employed citizens.


In contrary to Marcelli with the issue related to the extent to which illegal workers utilize more public services than their tax contributions, Moretti and Perloff (2000) "found that the participation in welfare programs by illegal immigrant worker families was 8% in contrast to 27%, 30%, and 42% for citizen, amnesty, and green card worker families, respectively" (Moretti & Perloff, 2000). Although this research is sustainable to the validity of welfare programs, it did not take into consideration the tax contributions with service usage. Their analysis was not based on tax contributions because "since most pertinent tax payments are via payroll deductions or sales tax collections, the general belief is that tax contributions vary little by legal status" (Moretti & Perloff, 2000). There analysis therefore, included all public services as well as public education. With the conclusion of this analysis, it shows that illegal immigrants are actually contributing to public services as well as social security because not only are they employees but they are also consumers who gives back to the community as well.


How do illegal immigrants detriment the U.S. economy?


While there are some that supports immigration, there are also many firm believers that immigration poses problems to the U.S. economy. Zedillo believes that illegal immigration poses problems for the U.S. every year "the size of the population living illegally in this country grows by as much as half a million people" (Zedillo, 2007). He argues that company employers who hire these illegal workers are also violating immigration laws because employers who hire illegal workers also violate immigration laws when misled by false documents (Zedillo, 2007). The reason why illegal workers are often employed is because it makes it easier for the employer and employee to escape paying taxes. Without paying taxes, Zedillo argues, illegal immigrants can become "a drain on social services and a public charge upon those states receiving the bulk of the inflow" (Zedillo, 2007). With the free ride of not having to pay taxes, illegal immigrants are more prone to abuse and exploitation without the aid of the government programs. Zedillo concludes that while working in these harsh conditions, many illegal immigrants find it hard to economically and culturally live in the U.S. due to having the risk of become an underclass and face a social conflict with U.S. citizens (Zedillo, 2007). By having social conflicts with others, illegal immigrants will hurt government services by not actively participates in contributing taxes however they will benefit the overall economy in which "immigration is essential to the dynamism of the American economy and for sustaining its pace in job creation" (Zedillo, 2007).

Friday, March 8, 2013

We are obliged to have car insurance for our vehicles. There are many benefits we can get from having the right insurance. We can get peace of mind when driving on the road. In addition, we can lower the risk of suffering from great loss when we get a car accident. If you are a newly married couple and both of you have good driving records, you can opt for getting joint-policy. Besides, if you want to cut the premium cost more, your car should not be a luxury with high performance one. Otherwise, there is a misconception in auto insurance.



An insurance company will easily say that you were not at fault in an accident when in fact you were at fault. Broadly speaking, when reviewing an auto claim; there will be always the truth investigated and found. In one case, when driving, you happen to rear-end a car. Your insurance company will process the payment to that person and her claims.  One of the most common reasons why people do not buy insurance is they do not want to spend on a monthly fee. Well, the fact is by paying a monthly fee, we can avoid from getting a severe financial crush.

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