Managing Products and Services Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Managing Products and Services - Essay Example 100 million. Growing competition in the local hospitality sector, changing customer preferences and the rising importance of green practices were the primary reasons behind this decision to undertake an extensive of the entire hotel. The hotel remained closed for nearly 3 years and opened in 2007 after investing over ?220 million (an excess of ?120 million over the initial budget) in the renovation and replacement of its entire infrastructure (Schwab, 2010). All along, the emphasis on the part of Savoy’s management was to preserve the hotel’s identity, elegance and its old-fashioned glory. Notable features such as the statue of Peter II or the American bar were retained although having undergone extensive makeovers and improvements. In simple words, Spenceley (2008) terms the restoration project implemented by Savoy can be termed as an elaborate improvement. A lot has been written about the green makeover that the hotel underwent during this phase. While the identity of Savoy as a luxury hotel or a place of extravagance does not require any introduction, the question does arise over just how green the hotel has become. The resulting strategies that the hotel’s management has adopted to market and promote its efforts towards environmental safety and customer satisfaction present an interesting situation with the reopening of the hotel. This paper describes an analysis that begins with an analysis of the key internal and external factors that influences the strategic decisions of the Savoy Hotel. The effectiveness with which the hotel has positioned itself in the market post-renovation and the steps taken to maintain and improve customer satisfaction are discussed thereafter. Key macro and micro factors influencing Savoy Hotel The effects of global warming and climate change are being felt the world over. Travelers and customers are increasingly aware of this growing problem and are becoming more active towards reducing their carbon footprint . Renewed needs from customers for green solutions and practices and rising costs associated with conventional methods of operation have prompted some much needed change on the part of the hospitality sector in the UK. The restoration of the Savoy hotel that commenced in 2007 was mainly driven by these considerations and the need to adopt a greener image (Peeters, 2010). Another factor that prompted the Savoy hotel to undergo the expensive renovation was the constantly rising costs as the hotel had previously not considered long-term savings through cheaper, greener solutions (Roth, 2011). The latest renovation and reopening of the hotel in 2010 has also led to the question of how much farther the hotel must go in order to become sustainable. Competition from rival hotels in implementing similar solutions to aid in environmental protection is another trend that facilitated a change in strategy on the part of Savoy hotel. Since 2006, the UK hospitality industry has witnessed a rapid surge in energy costs due to rising fuel prices (Horner, 2008). Prices for conventional fuels like gasoline and natural gas have been on higher over previous years. The ongoing tension in the Middle East and the resulting volatility in the markets have also contributed to this increase in fuel costs. Hotel chains like the Hilton International and the Grosvenor House Hotel have

Surprising reversal Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Surprising reversal - Essay Example This plan is supposed to take care of the soldiers’ children in times of deployment. Many a time, this does not work the way it is supposed to. Often a soldier has to assign temporary guardianship to a relative. Soldiers are also sent back home to reconstruct a new FCP, because the previous one has failed and the time a soldier gets to complete this task is just not enough for such an important exercise. FCPs are something that soldiers need time to put together. This is not a task to be taken lightly. It takes a lot of time, thought and effort to put together an effective Family Care Plan. Instead the military gives only thirty days for them to find someone to entrust their loved ones. FCP helps the military maintain its level of readiness for deployment. On the face of it, it is a deceptively simple exercise but from the soldier’s point of view, it is a rigorous task that is not easily completed by a long shot. There are several factors that must be addressed when imp lementing the FCP. The ‘person of choice’ to entrust children is to me, the biggest choice a soldier has to make. Someone that appeared to be a prime candidate might have issues/flaws that would keep that person from being able to take care of the soldiers’ loved ones. ... The soldier found herself charged with desertion, which is a very high wartime crime. If it had not been for the local media in her home town, this soldier might have even been convicted. FCP exercises are hard to complete and most of the time, they don’t even hold up. Everything is documented and placed into the soldiers’ files. Everyone knows that deployments come and go, but no one knows when. Knowing when and where a soldier will be deployed is one thing, but not everything goes according to how it was planned. When the time came for me to activate my FCP in which I named my mother as the preferred guardian, she was ill with cancer – an unforeseen factor. She was unable to provide the necessary care to my children due to her illness. When I tried to get one of my sisters to take my mother’s place in my FCP, I was unsuccessful; she had marriage issues that she was dealing with at the time, which made her not a very good candidate for the job of care of my two boys. Such unforeseen factors reduce the efficacy of FCPs. I was separated from the armed forces recently, in March of 2009 for a collapse of my FCP. Of course, I was honorably discharged. In conclusion, despite the military’s best intentions and beliefs, FCPs are not what they appear to be. They have been known to trap soldiers into legally binding contracts, which in some cases are not in the best interest of either the soldiers or their families. On the other hand, FCPs appear to have been designed to free soldiers from any obligation that they might have, so that the military does not have to lose them from its deployment readiness. Reference Engler, A. (2011). â€Å"Deployed military parents: Choosing custody or duty†. Good Housekeeping, April 3, 2011. Available

Ethnicity and Gender in Late Childhood and Adolescense Essay Example for Free

Ethnicity and Gender in Late Childhood and Adolescense Essay This paper focuses on an study that was conducted to examine the awareness of gender and ethinic bias along with gender and ethnic identity in late childhood and early adolescence. Data was collected on children in 4th, 6th, and 8th grades from various elementary and middle schools. The ethnic groups that were represented were White/European American, African American, an Latino. Daily diaries and individual interviews displayed that ethnic, gender, and grade level differences affected the awareness of bias ( Developmental Psychology, 2011). It was further proven that children in this age range were more aware of gender bias than ethinic bias. Keywords: gender identity, ethnic identity, bias During adolescent development a child’s need to be identified based ethnicity and/or gender becomes more prevalent and is further influenced by their peers. In addition, during this stage of development, social identity can have a deeper impact on intergroup attitudes. In the text, chapter 3 discusses gender schemas and how they evolve from being inflexible to flexible though the development of a human being (Wade Tavris, 2011). In the Development Psychology article, â€Å"Ethnicity and Gender in Late Childhood and Early Adolescence: Group Identity and Awareness of Bias†, 2011, psychologists, Alabi, Brown, Huynh, and Masten examined the awareness of gender an identity bias and its impact on the individuals/groups. The hypothesis is the possibility that children can be aware of one type of bias and oblivious to the another based on their group identity. The study was conducted with 350 students from three participating elementary schools and three middle schools in Southern California. The schools represented various ethnic/racial make-ups and socioeconomic statuses that included 67 African American, 120 White, and 167 Latino students. Two methodologies were used during this study, case study and naturalistic observation. The case study methodology as described by the text is the description of an individual based on their observation of behavior during a specified period (Wade Tavris, 2011, p. 18). During the first week the case study was conducted by each participant receiving a diary to document their assessment of what identity was most important to them. The approach was referred to as identity centrality and the children received an ethnicity and gender score based on the results. The second portion of this test, identified as the identity salience approach involved students documenting whether or not they thought about gender, ethnic, or no identity at all during each period of the school day. The results of this test revealed that 51% of the children mentioned ethnicity and 63% mentioned gender. Following this portion of the study, the students were assessed through individual interviews with the same ethnicity, same gender experimenter. To assess ethnic identity, the students were presented five items with opposing questions, in which they had to choose the statement that they most identified with. A similar assessment was conducted to determine the degree of their gender identity. The final results of these assessments revealed that 51% of the students were aware of ethnic bias associated with ethnic identity while 49% were unaware. The relationship between bias and group identity was determined by eight ethnic and gender identity measures to include: gender and ethinic identity, salience, centrality, positivity/importance of ethnicity, contentedness with gender, felt gender typicality, and felt pressure to conform to gender norms. Over 38% of the students felt positive about their ethnicity and felt content/typical with their gender. 26% percent felt that their ethnicity was not important and felt no pressure to conform to gender norms. 20% of the students felt that their ethnicity was not important but was discontent with the gender norms. Finally, 9% felt that their ethnicity was positive and important and were content with gender norms. In this study the awareness of gender and ethnic bias varied by age group. It comes as no surprise that children become more aware of gender bias than ethnic bias at a young age. As the text mentions, gender identity is discovered at preschool age in which the process of gender typing begins. This is where boys and girls begin to get in touch with their masculine and feminine characteristics (Wade Tavris, 2011, pg. 107). Ethinic identity creates a sense of emotional attachment to the group and the individual feels the need to conform to the values set forth (Wade Tavris, 2011, pg. 350). This study further showed that European American students were more aware of gender bias than ethnic bias. In middle school all students were equally aware of both biases but African american and Latinos were likely to be aware of ethnic bias in elementary school. The potential cause of this stemmed from belonging to a negatively stereotyped group which raised the earlier awareness. This showed that European American students were less likely to be targeted for ethnic bias ( Developmental Psychology, 2011). In early adolescence girls were more aware of gender bias than boys and could attest to being targets of discrimation. Conclusion The conduction of this study proved that children in late childhood and adolescence were more aware of gender bias than ethnic bias. In addition the results showed that children who were non European-American experienced and identified with ethnic bias at an earlier age. The limitations to this study was the demographics. This study was conducted in Los Angeles which has a very unique demographic because it is essentially a melting pot of ethnicities. The different socioeconomical factors and educational inequalities impacted the outcome of the results. Children in the poorest schools had more challenges to encounter in school than their peers in this study. These experiences molded their ethnic identities and the biases associated with it. During late childhood an adolescence development, group identity and intergroup relations became important factors. It is expected that this age group no matter the gender/ethnicity will witness or be a target of discrimination. Although legal segregation is a thing of the past, gender and ethnic bias can greatly impact society but the attitudes and beliefs of individuals can be contained through intervention. With intervention at the earlier stages of development, children can fully witness equality. Future research methods inspired by this article should focus on the data collected from various locations throughout the country. Keeping this research generalized to one location compromises the true validity of the study. New research methods will determine how different ethnicities identify with gender and ethnic bias. Other areas of concentration that should be included in this study are the workforce, judicial system and media/television. Successful results of these research methods can pave the way for some individuals to change their ideologies. These studies can impact the lives of everyday people and potentially unveil solutions to discrimination. As we become a more multicultural country, we must realize the importance of cultural awareness so that we can better interact with different ethnicities/genders. Parents should encourage their to children to foster positive relationships with their peers despite cultural difference. These solutions will alleviate the stereotypes associated with gender and ethnic identity. References Brown, C. , Alabi, B. , Huynh, V. , Masten, C.. (2011). Ethnicity and Gender in Late Childhood and Early Adolescence: Group Identity and Awareness of Bias. Developmental Psychology, 47(2), 463. Retrieved May 21, 2011, from Research Library. (Document ID: 2321539051) Wade, C. , Tavris, C. (2011). Invitation to Psychology, fifth Edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

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Abortion itself is not an easy process to go through. Having a simple fetus removed medically might seem easy, but the woman herself might go through many difficult situations before, during, and after the process of abortion emotionally and physically. Making the right choice of having an abortion might be regretful to some woman and their family. The choices are either having the baby and later finding out they can’t take care of the baby or having an abortion and finding out later that you cannot have a child in the future. There can physical effects on woman that have abortion. Abortion can result in miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies, and a slight chance of breast cancer. Many miscarriages happen when an abortion is used on the previous pregnancy because it can be dangerous to the future reproductive systems of woman. After an abortion, there can be severe case where bleeding and infection can occur. A woman might have five times the chance of ectopic pregnancy because the woman who had their first pregnancy was terminated. An ectopic pregnancy happens when the embryo is implante...

The Charmer

â€Å"The Charmer† by Budge Wilson is a short story that displays the important of the role of family circulating through a main character named Zack. Just as any family, the parent has an important role that is to love, forgive and care for their children; but Zack’s failure was affected by these factors in his family. The love, forgiveness and lack of discipline from all family members create Zack’s childhood character and his adulthood down fall. First of all, growing up as a happy and popular young man, Zack creates himself the prefect reputation with lots of room for love and smothering from his mother and two sisters.They love him so much and show this love by being at his every beckoning. According to Winnifred, â€Å"I was Zachary’s willing slave. Slavery, in fact, was in vogue in our house. † (Wilson, 102), Zack is overwhelmed with love and good deeds sent in his direction. He takes advantage of these kind gestures and never really apprecia tes what his family has done for him. Besides that, the family also gives him so much love just because â€Å"he was the only son, the only brother, the oldest child in the family† (103).He is spoiled by such irrational blind love, and that leads him to being a selfish and irresponsible person. That is why he starts to a have a sign of a â€Å"real evil† (103) when he is still young. In opposite, if his parent shares their love to his sisters, he would have learnt how to love and share responsibilities. Secondly, Zack’s bad behaviours also develop from his parent’s forgiveness. He dares to eat the cake that his mom makes for the church bazaar; and, he uses just some flattery words to fool his mom into forgiveness: â€Å"Go ahead. Have another piece.You certainly are the limit! † (102). He is taught that he can do something knowing he should not and stand a very good chance getting away with it. Zack makes mistakes but gets away without punishment o r a good lesson. His down fall continues with lies, stealing money, smoking, drinking, smashing the family’s car, dumping his Dad’s toolbox, etc. , during his teenager age. He even takes the family car when they need to go see Lizzie on her dead bed, â€Å"but Mom forgave him everything† because â€Å"he’s sensitive, he’s taking it hard, and he can’t face what ahead for us. (104). His mother thinks that letting her son run free is good for him but actually just makes him worst. His mother thinks that he is suffering but actually he does not care for any one other than himself. Wrongfully forgiveness is a counteraction that also affect to Zack’s failure. At the age of twenty-four, he is still living at home, looses his job one after another, and plunges himself into drinking and gambling. Finally, the lack of discipline in the family, especially from Zack’s father, is also a key factor to Zack’s debouching.His father mak es mistake of not saying or doing anything about his disagreement with the way Zack is treated, the bad behaviours Zack encountered. Winnifred describes that: â€Å"Even Dad took a long time to wake up† and â€Å"he would just leave the room and go out to his work shed and sit and rock and rock in that old chair of his† (103). The father is the male role model in a family. He knows about Zack’s problem, he knows about Zack’s bad behaviours, but why he does not act until it’s too late? Without discipline, Zack never learns from his mistake.Besides that, Zack’s mother also lacks in parental and discipline. Every time Zack acts as prodigal son, he â€Å"always left Mom in tatters† (103). This caption shows soften in his mother’s heart that makes she forget about the role of a parent when her son makes mistake. She is afraid her son would think bad of her, maybe even hate her if she applies discipline on him. When his Dad gives him two choices: stay with discipline or leave; Zack chooses to leave the family and end up destroying his life in gambling and drinking.In a family, love and forgiveness and discipline is really necessary present and being applied reasonable. Excessive love will become blind love. The parent sometimes has to put their love aside, and do what is best for their child. Forgiveness is necessary but if a parent forgives too easily, the child will take advantage of his rights. Although, with that comes discipline, less suffering will follow. A family is the foundation of a society and family really affects to the success or failure of each person in life. Hopefully through this story, readers will get a lesson about how to raise their children properly.

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Tourist Typologies and Travel Motivations - 3187 Words

It could be argued that the verb â€Å"to travel† encompasses many connotations as people around the world, from different backgrounds, socio-cultural, linguistic and professional, choose to travel to a particular destination for different reasons, influenced by a variety of extrinsic and intrinsic factors. Throughout the years, many researchers in the field have sought a more academic answer to the question â€Å"Why do people travel?† It is the aim of the present paper to critically examine different authors’ views on travel motivations and tourist typology models and discuss their practical applicability to the type of destination choice. The first part of the discussion focusing on leisure travel motivations will be based on Maslow’s hierarchy†¦show more content†¦Several researchers have applied Maslow’s pyramid in their studies on tourism motivation (for instance, Ross, 1994; Sharpley, 1994; PageConnell, 2006). The levels in the hierarchy, from lowest to highest, are as follows: â€Å"physiological needs (hunger, thirst, sleep, sex, air); safety needs (freedom from threat or danger, a secure, orderly and predictable environment); love needs (feelings of belonging, affectionate relationships, friendship, group membership); esteem needs (self respect, achievement, self-confidence, reputation, recognition, prestige); need for self-actualisation (self-fulfillment, realising oneâ€⠄¢s potential).† (Ross, 1994 p.18) We are all motivated by needs and, in this respect, Maslow’s hierarchy helps to explain and understand how these needs motivate us. According to Maslow, cited in Ross (1994 p.17), the lower-order needs, the most obvious ones for survival, would have to be satisfied first before the higher-order needs could influence our behaviour. Conversely, when things contributing towards the satisfaction of our basic needs are swept off, we are no longer concerned with fulfilling our higher-order needs. Maslow’s hierarchy, while not initially intended for tourism, has been considered a useful tool for describing the needs and wants of tourists and their hosts. We shall now briefly look at what sort of needs people fulfill whenShow MoreRelatedTravel Motivation and Tourist Typologies2366 Words   |  10 Pagesunderstand the complex inner works of human behaviour and motivation have been sought amongst researchers in the tourism field for many years. After all, motivation is ‘th e trigger that sets off all events in travel’ (Parrinello, 1993 cited in Sharpley, 1994), thus making it the most indispensable subject in tourism studies. 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