Own Hospitality Business Economics Essay

Introduction While at my early level of education I had a compelling drive within that one day I be one of the accommodation service providers in the country. Hospitality entails a lot of dealing with people which even made it more interesting and appealing to me. On completing my university education I was immediately absorbed in one of the leading hotel service providers in the country, Hilton Hotel. I encountered and dealt with several people of different walks. This gave me experience enough, and after working with Hilton Hotel for five years, I decided to quit my job and start my own business. Right now I have started my own Hospitality business in the name of Downtown Cafà © situated along one of the major highway and sandwiched between the Nairobi National park and Nairobi University in the city. My business mainly provides restaurant services.   In proper management of a business, the following are the key areas I would like to identify my business with: A.) Demand and Supply The experience I gained at Hilton Hotel taught me a lot about handling, maintaining and winning new customers. For the smooth running of a business, product and service supply should be consistent. With regard to these I will discuss demand and supply separately. Lee (1998, P. 115) explains that demand is the steady request of an item or service in the market for consumption or use by the consumer or customer. My target customers are mainly students and tourists who come there for refreshments and food. As for the Hospitality service which I render, its’ demand to remain high, the following vital concepts must be taken into consideration: First, great service is not enough; customers need to have personal bond with my employees say waiters. This helps me in maintaining new customers thus making it impossible to lose them to my competitors. Hospitality is not only about excellent products, it also demands dialogue, listening to the customer’s needs and attending to them accordingly. Incorporate this aspect in your business and succeed successfully. Second, my employees come first and customers come second. What do I mean? I believe in meeting the needs of my employees first as a key role. By so doing, they will all be willing to meet the business standards by rendering quality service to my customers. This is a very ideal factor for a service providing business. Thirdly, collecting information about my guests, finding out what they need preferences and those that are allergic to certain types of food. This gives my customers a feeling of importance which on the other hand makes them loyal customers. The personal connection I have employed really works for me. I can’t lose them to other stakeholders in the market. Forth, in recruiting my employees I use the 51% solution method whereby, emotional skills for example; kindness, empathy and curiosity along with strong work ethics are the primary qualities for my candidates. This skill is great; I only employ people who will nurture superb Hospitality to my customers. For sure, my customers feel at home interacting with my employees hence the demand for my services remains outstanding. Another key thing is promotion of my services which has also earned me new customers thus increasing the demand. Here, I use local radio stations in voicing the goodness of my services. Supply: These are chiefly the products and services that a company or business offers to the market. My business offers products and services stipulated bellow. Food: I have majored in providing unique food that is basically cultural. The locals like this supply to embrace their own culture. For instance University students come from different localities with different cultures hence my restaurant gives them a chance to know and eat food from different parts of the country. Tourists on the other hand are eager to learn the diverse kinds of cultural food stuffs in the country. They also identify themselves with citizens by eating the food. Drinks: My restaurant provides soft, hard, traditional and exotic drinks. These drinks are good for refreshment all the time. Students are my immediate guests for they always come to the restaurant everyday for relaxing after classes. Tourists after a day full of ups and downs in the park come at evening hours to refresh themselves. Entertainment: There is a movie theater section, disco hall and a DSTV service section in my restaurant. This gives my customers all day long entertainment; movies are advertised and tickets sold in advance hence my customers have an easy time watching their movies. Discos are held once a week on Fridays, students love this. DSTV is most convenient to sports’ funs especially soccer premier leagues across the globe. Accommodation: I have a lodging facility which is mainly used by the tourists that visit the park and businessmen who visit the city for business. Conference hall is available and it is vital for meetings. Different people appreciate using this facility. B.) Downtown Cafà © has products that are both elastic and inelastic. Elastic products or service are those that have close substitutes as they can also be provided for by competitors. My cafà ©s’ drinks and services are the most elastic ones for they can be acquired from any other hospitality service providing institution. Soft drinks like sodas, juices and mineral water can be obtained or found everywhere; in supermarkets, street shops and other restaurants and hotels across the city. I have no authority in controlling their prices. On the other hand, accommodation and entertainment are the most flooded markets. In order to earn much from this market segment you have to go an extra mile by perfecting your services to attract more customers. Inelastic products or services are those that have no close substitutes, they are unique to the provider and can not be provided for by any other person, institution or organization. My restaurants’ food is exceptional in the city since there is no any other hotel or restaurant that delivers such product as cultural food to the market. Here I have won, I enjoy monopolistic kind of competition and my profit from this segment is high. C.) Price elasticity of demand is a measure of how responsive an increase in price of product and service affects the demand. Product’s and service’s price elasticity of demand is determined by the following factors: Number of substitutes: When there are many close alternative products, when you increase the price of your product or service the customer can easily shift other substitutes. In the case of Downtown Cafà ©, we cannot increase the prices of drinks, accommodation, and entertainment since there many hotels that provide the same. We can only increase the prices of foods without losing customers given that we are the sole providers of cultural foods in the city Lee (1998). Degree of necessity: If the product or service is a necessity the demand for it is difficult to change with increase in price. Food product is a necessity in my restaurant the demand for it is always constant and if there is any deviation, is a positive one. Price of the goods as a proportion of income: Items that account for a large proportion of income are more elastic compared to those that need/account for a small proportion of income. Food in Downtown Cafà © is lowly priced and the demand for it is inelastic unlike drinks like bear which are highly priced McLaughlin (2006, P 54). D.) Explicit cost is direct money payments that a company or business incurs when paying for a factor or factors of production, these may be wages, interest rates, rent and capital. Downtown Cafà © incurs explicit cost when paying wages to employees after rendering their services to the business, paying rent and taxes to the government and promotion costs to the radio stations. Implicit cost is opportunity cost related/associated with the use of firms own resources that measured in monetary terms but are not paid for directly in money. These are basically non-purchased inputs like capital, inventory and owner’s resources. Downtown Cafà © implicit costs were encountered when I used my own capital to buy entertainment equipments such as TV sets, Music system and DSTV camera. E.) Downtown Cafà © has a perfect market competition. Perfect competition is a type of market where there are many firms that produce close substitute products or services into the market. Conversely, imperfect market competition is where there one or few firms that provide products or services to the market. Downtown restaurant exhibits perfect market structure in the service provision segment. Accommodation, entertainment, drinks and conferencing services are services that other hotels like Hilton, Stanley, Grand Regency and Nairobi Hotel also provide. This portion of the market is so tricky in that when you try to increase fees on accommodation, entertainment or conference services you stand a high chance of loosing customers to other players in the market. F.) Downtown Cafà © anticipated total sales of $ 150,000, revenue of $ 90,000 and total operational cost of $ 60,000 per month. The firm is said to be at shutdown point when revenues are less than total cost or profit is less than average total cost. In the short run it is possible for a firm to make an economic profit because it is there are few providers or operators in the market. In this situation, revenue or price of the product or service is slightly high than the average cost. In the short run Downtown Cafà © used to make hyper profits. This can be illustrated by the diagram below Stigler (2007). On the other hand, in the long run economic profit cannot be sustained it is impossible for the firm. The arrival of new competitors and expansion of the existing firms in the market causes the demand of individual firm to decrease. The prices of products decrease causing the marginal revenue and average revenue to equal. After a period of two years Downtown Cafà © profits became constant and they equaled marginal revenue and average revenue. In the long run the cafà © made normal profits thus zero economic profit. This is illustrated in the diagram below Kreps (1990, P 36). REFERENCES Kreps, D. M. 1990. A Course in Microeconomic Theory, New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Lee, F.S.1998. Post-Keynesian Price Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McLaughlin, L.A. 2006.Money: The Business of Hospitality. London: Oxford University Press. Stigler J.G. 2007. Competition, The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics, Ist edition, vol. 3, pp.  531–46.

Summary of The Trojan War A New History, by Barry Strauss

What is Ethics Free Essays

Ethics are standards that differentiate right and wrong and how people should conduct themselves. Ethics refer to standards that would prevent someone from doing something wrong, like murder for example. Is it ethical to commit murder? Society has deemed murder as an unacceptable. We will write a custom essay sample on What is Ethics? or any similar topic only for you Order Now In the same way ethics help to determine what are appropriate behavior at home, school, and the work place. How we interact with others can be considered ethical, treating others with respect, hospitality, sharing, and helping others in need would be considered good ethical behavior. Ethical standards also include virtues of honesty, compassion, and loyalty. The Virtue Theory The virtue theory deals with the individual, the expectation is to â€Å"cultivate excellence in all that you do and all that others do (Boylan, 2009). † It deals with the character of an individual. Qualities of a virtuous person would be considered an upstanding, trustworthy, dependable, and honest. In contrast an unethical person would be selfish, unreliable, devious, or careless. People are characterized as â€Å"good† or â€Å"bad† or a combination of both, it does not leave room for a good person to make a bad choice. Once a person commits an unacceptable act, he or she may be branded as a bad person even if they have high morals and ethics instead of a good person who made a bad decision. An example of this would be of a person who drinks and drives. This is bad choice and the consequences of this choice can lead to accidents and death, but does this mean that this is a bad person? More than likely there would be no negative consequence unless the person is caught or there is an accident causing physical or property damage. The Utilitarianism Theory Utilitarianism is an ethical theory that places right and wrong on the consequence of the action that will be for â€Å"the greatest good for the greatest number† (Boylan, p. 133, 2009). The utilitarianism moves from the individual’s interest and takes into account the interest of others. An example of this would be when a team member knows that another person is a better fit for a job and steps down so that person can take the lead, which would benefit the whole team in the process. An example of this that comes to mind is: during the plot to kill Jesus, John 11:49-50 â€Å"Caiaphas, being high priest that year, spoke up, you know nothing at all! You do not realize that it is better for you that one man should die for the people than the whole nation perish. † This is an example of the sacrifice of one to benefit the whole group or nation† (â€Å"Caiaphas – High Priest Of The Jerusalem Temple†). The Deontological Theory Deontological theory questions right and wrong by action instead of consequences. It is considered to be wrong when the action intentionally harms others. The deontological approach defines ethics as either right or wrong, there is little or no middle ground for exceptions (â€Å"Deontology Ethics,† 2008). With the utilitarianism theory it is acceptable to lie if it is to prevent hurting a person, with the deontological theory it is wrong to lie because it is a lie. Conclusion The similarities between the ethics theories concern the idea of right and wrong, and good and bad. The differences constitute on how they interpret right from wrong, and good from bad. With the virtue theory deals with the individual, whereas the utilitarianism focus on the group where actions are right when they provide the greatest good to the largest group. The deontology determines rightness by actions not the consequences; deontology is more of an absolute, stealing is wrong, lying is wrong, and murder is wrong, anything that causes harm to another person. All three theories have a place in present society and are used interactively without conscious effort. From a young age people are taught right from wrong from parents, teachers, church, and other people they come in contact with. How to cite What is Ethics?, Papers

Jungle And The Rain Forest Essays - Forests, Habitats,

Jungle and The Rain Forest Jungle and rain forest are terms that are often used synonymously but with little precision. The more meaningful and restrictive of these terms is rain forest, which refers to the climax or primary forest in regions with high rainfall (greater than 1.8 m/70 in per year), chiefly but not exclusively found in the tropics. Rain forests are significant for their valuable timber resources, and in the tropics they afford sites for commercial crops such as rubber, tea, coffee, bananas, and sugarcane. They also include some of the last remaining areas of the Earth that are both unexploited economically and inadequately known scientifically. The term jungle originally referred to the tangled, brushy vegetation of lowlands in India, but it has come to be used for any type of tropical forest or woodland. The word is more meaningful if limited to the dense, scrubby vegetation that develops when primary rain forest has been degraded by destructive forms of logging or by cultivation followed by abandonment. Types of Rain Forest Rain forests may be grouped into two major types: tropical and temperate. Tropical rain forest is characterized by broadleaf evergreen trees forming a closed canopy, an abundance of vines and epiphytes (plants growing on the trees), a relatively open forest floor, and a very large number of species of both plant and animal life. The largest trees have buttressed trunks and emerge above the continuous canopy, while smaller trees commonly form a layer of more shade-tolerant species beneath the upper canopy. The maximum height of the upper canopy of tropical rain forests is generally about 30 to 50 m (100 to 165 ft), with some individual trees rising as high as 60 m (200 ft) above the forest floor. The largest areas of tropical rain forest are in the Amazon basin of South America, in the Congo basin and other lowland equatorial regions of Africa, and on both the mainland and the islands off Southeast Asia, where they are especially abundant on Sumatra and New Guinea. Small areas are found in Central America and along the Queensland coast of Australia. Temperate rain forests, growing in higher-latitude regions having wet, maritime climates, are less extensive than those of the tropics but include some of the most valuable timber in the world. Notable forests in this category are those on the northwest coast of North America, in southern Chile, in Tasmania, and in parts of southeastern Australia and New Zealand. These forests contain trees that may exceed in height those of tropical rain forests, but there is less diversity of species. Conifers such as REDWOOD and Sitka spruce tend to predominate in North America, while their counterparts in the southern hemisphere include various species of EUCALYPTUS, Araucaria, and Nothofagus (Antarctic beech). Ecology Rain forests cover less than six percent of the Earth's total land surface, but they are the home for up to three-fourths of all known species of plants and animals; undoubtedly they also contain many more species as yet undiscovered. Recent studies suggest that this great diversity of species is related to the apparently dynamic and unstable nature of rain forests over geologic time. The fact is that despite their appearance of fertile abundance, rain forests are fragile ecosystems. Their soils can quickly lose the ability to support most forms of vegetation once the forest cover is removed, and some soils even turn into hard LATERITE clay. The effect of forest removal on local climates is also often profound, although the role of rain forests in world climatic changes is not yet clear. Humans and Rain Forests Throughout history, human beings have encroached on rain forests for living space, timber, and agricultural purposes. In vast portions of upland tropical forest, for example, the practice of "shifting cultivation" has caused deterioration of the primary forest. In this primitive system of agriculture, trees are killed in small plots that are cropped for two or three seasons and then abandoned; if the plots are again cultivated before primary vegetation has reestablished itself, the result is a progressive deterioration of the forest, leading to coarse grass or jungle. Lowland forests are similarly being reduced in many areas; on the island of Java, the lowland primary forest has been almost totally removed and replaced with rice fields or plantation crops such as rubber. In the 20th century these incursions on rain forests have grown rapidly, and numerous organizations are now attempting to reduce the rate of the loss. Bibliography: Caufield, Catherine, In the Rainforest (1985); Forsyth, Adrian, and Miyata, Ken, Tropical Nature: Life and Death in the Rain Forests of Central and South America (1984); Sutton, S. L., et al., Tropical Rain Forest: Ecology and Management

Glow Stick Experiment - Rate of Chemical Reaction

Glow Stick Experiment - Rate of Chemical Reaction Who doesnt love playing with glow sticks? Grab a pair and use them to examine how temperature affects the rate of chemical reactions. Its good science, plus its helpful information for when you want to make a glow stick last longer or glow more brightly. Glow Stick Experiment Materials 3 Glow sticks (the short ones are idea, but you can use any size)Glass of ice waterGlass of hot water   How To Do the Glow Stick Experiment Yes, you can just activate the glow sticks, put them in the glasses, and see what happens, but that wouldnt be an experiment. Apply the scientific method: Make observations. Activate the three glow sticks by snapping them to break the container inside the tube and allowing the chemicals to mix. Does the temperature of the tube change when it starts to glow? What color is the glow? Its a good idea to write down observations.Make a prediction. Youre going to leave one glow stick at room temperature, place one in a glass of ice water, and place the third in a glass of hot water. What do you think will happen?Conduct the experiment. Note what time it is, in case you want to time how long each glow stick lasts. Place one stick in the cold water, one in the hot water, and leave the other at room temperature. If you like, use a thermometer to record the three temperatures.Take data. Note how brightly each tube glows. Are they all the same brightness? Which tube glows the most brightly? Which is the dimmest? If you have time, see how long each tube glows. Did they all glow the same length of time? Which lasted the longest? Which stopped glowin g first? You can even do math, to see how much longer one tube lasted compared with the other. Once you have completed the experiment, examine the data. You can make a table showing how brightly each stick glowed and how long it lasted. These are your results.Draw a conclusion. What happened? Did the outcome of the experiment support your prediction? Why do you think the glow sticks reacted to temperature the way they did? Glow Sticks and the Rate of Chemical Reaction A glow stick is an example of chemiluminescence. This means luminescence or light is produced as the result of a chemical reaction. Several factors affect the rate of a chemical reaction, including temperature, concentration of reactants, and the presence of other chemicals. Spoiler alert: This section tells you what happened and why. Increasing temperature typically increases the rate of the chemical reaction. Increasing temperature speeds up the motion of molecules, so they are more likely to bump into each other and react. In the case of glow sticks, this means a hotter temperature will make the glow stick glow more brightly. However, a faster reaction means it reaches completion more quickly, so placing a glow stick in a hot environment will shorten how long it lasts. On the other hand, you can slow down the rate of a chemical reaction by lowering the temperature. If you chill a glow stick, it wont glow as brightly, but it will last much longer. You can use this information to help glow sticks last. When you are done with one, put it in the freezer to slow down its reaction. It may last until the next day, while a glow stick at room temperature would stop producing light. Are Glow Sticks Endothermic or Exothermic? Another experiment you can perform is to determine whether or not glow sticks are endothermic or exothermic. In other words, does the chemical reaction in a glow stick absorb heat (endothermic) or release heat (exothermic)? Its also possible the chemical reaction neither absorbs nor releases heat. You might assume that a glow stick releases heat because it releases energy in the form of light. To find out whether this is true, you need a sensitive thermometer. Measure the temperature of a glow stick before activating it. Measure the temperature once you crack the stick to start the chemical reaction. If the temperature increases, the reaction is exothermic. If it decreases, its endothermic. If you cant record a change, then the reaction is essentially neutral as far as thermal energy is concerned.

How to Define Atmosphere

How to Define Atmosphere The term atmosphere has multiple meanings in science: Atmosphere Definition Atmosphere refers to the gases surrounding a star or planetary body held in place by gravity. A body is more likely to retain an atmosphere over time if gravity is high and the temperature of the atmosphere is low. The composition of the Earths atmosphere is about 78 percent nitrogen, 21 percent oxygen, 0.9 percent argon, with water vapor, carbon dioxide, and other gases. The atmospheres of other planets have a different composition. The composition of the Suns atmosphere consists of about 71.1 percent hydrogen, 27.4 percent helium, and 1.5 percent other elements. Atmosphere Unit An atmosphere is also a unit of pressure. One atmosphere (1 atm) is defined to be equal to 101,325 Pascals. A reference or standard pressure is commonly 1 atm. In other cases, Standard Temperature and Pressure or STP is used.

Two Events Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Two Events - Essay Example It acted as a wakeup call for USA to defend its citizens. The following paper looks at the above two events and how they have contributed to the current state of America. Attack on Pearl Harbor On 7th December 1941, the United States of America was intentionally and abruptly ambushed by the air and naval forces of the Japan Empire. The location of the bombing and sinking of American ships was the Pearl Harbor Naval and Army base in Oahu, Hawaii. The US eventually entered World War II due to this homeland assault (Takaki, 2008). I believe that the effects of Pearl Harbor were mostly positive for Americans. Even though the attack terrified the nation, it also united a nation that had been divided due to the war in Europe. After the attack, there were various drives launched such as scrapped iron drive, united paper drives and recycled items. These were used to make items vital for the war such as machine guns, flame throwers, binoculars, and hand grenades. Even the youngest were helpfu l as school children had coin drives in which they gathered coins to purchase war bonds to support the government (Dower, 2011). The second positive effect is that it assisted in ending the Great Depression which had started in 1929. It brought a great need for an industry that provides materials for war-times like ammunition, guns and uniforms for the troops. At the end of the war, citizens purchased all they could not during the war period. There was also a decrease in the rate of unemployment as ten million men and women joined the army while those left at home took jobs in factories. Another positive outcome was that as a resolution not to permit a repeat of World War II, the United Nations was born. The Senate that had declined to sanction the membership of America in the League of Nations following World War I, eventually irresistibly sanctioned US membership in the UN after World War II (Stone, & Kuznick, 2012). There however were some negative elements of the attack in that over 2000 citizens died and 21 ships were sank or damaged seriously. Japanese-American citizens were placed in relocation camps as a measure to ensure that there was no risk of a Japanese descendant acting as a spy for Japan (Takaki, 2008). They were forcefully evicted from their homes within 48 hours and lived in poor conditions. However, in 1988, congress gave a formal apology to the affected and gave the survivors compensations of $20,000 each (Stone, & Kuznick, 2012). After this gesture, America has now turned to be one of the most democratic nations in the world. Its citizens and government became more appreciative to human rights of foreigners and citizens. Conclusion It is clear that if we forget the past then we are bound to repeat its mistakes. The two attacks, even though devastating, shaped USA in their own capacities. They served to bring the nation together in times of crisis. We would not be the strong united superpower we are today without such occurrences. As a count ry, we should take precautionary measures in future and also arrest perpetrators of such attacks while still maintaining socially correct honor to the opinions and rights of mankind. It is right for us as a country to defend ourselves against future attacks but we should do so without destroying our civil rights and values as we do. References Didion, J. (2003). Fixed Ideas: America Since 9.11. New York: New York Review Books. Dower, J. W. (2011). Cultures of War: Pearl Harbor / Hiroshima / 9-11 /