Visitor and destination management plan Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4500 words

Visitor and destination management plan - Essay Example The Canary Islands consist of Isla de Gran Canaria, Isla de Tenerife, Isla de la Palma, Isla de la Gomera, Isla de El Hierro, Isla de Alegranza, and Isla de Fuerteventura. Tourism is one of the main revenue source for the isands, with Gran Canaria and Tenerife attracting the most visitors, however, tourism abounds throughout the chain (McLeod, 1999). The Canary Islands, which shall focus on Gran Canaria of the island chain, as the subject location for this study of tourism and destination management in that the location is well known as well as offered suitable information that is available to enable an examination of the varied points to be addressed herein. In examining visitor and destination management, an understanding of the term is necessary to position it within this study. The Association of Destination Management Executives defines destination management as professional management that specialises " in the design and delivery of events, activities, tours, staffing and transportation, possessing and utilising extensive local knowledge, expertise and resources" (Lee, 1998). The World Trade Organisation Business Council advises that "the current trend in almost all regions of the world is towards semi-public but autonomous tourism organizations involving a partnership with both private sector and regional and/ or local authorities" (George Washington University, 2003). The preceding marks a distinct departure from the past as the roles as well as responsibilities of the private sector and governments have undergone a significant change in that the state no longer has the main responsibility for the development and promotion of tourism (George Washington University, 2003). The new situation calls for the alignment of both interests due to the huge economic ramifications of tourism that requires cooperation and planning between the state, local governments, the private business sector, as well as local communities in the crafting of long range plans concerning infrastructure investment, that consists of airport, transport, road, energy delivery, and related improvements as well as foreign investment attraction for hotels, general and specific industries (World Travel and Tourism Organisation, 1999). The fact

Financial Statements Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Financial Statements - Essay Example d of the companies are for the year 2008.The areas covered are profitability, liquidity, financial risks, investments attractions and overall growth of the companies. The ratios employed to assess the profitability of two competitive airlines are Operating profit margin, Net Profit Margin, ROCE, and earnings per share. Gross profit margin cannot be employed as the airline business is not a goods trading business. Operating Profit Margin â€Å"measures the percentage of each sales dollar remaining after all costs and expenses other than interest and taxes are deducted. It represents the pure profits earned on each sales dollar.†(Lawrence J. Gitman, page 144)i Easyjet operating profit margins are mere 3.85% as compared to massive 19.78% of Ryanair. The reason for such difference is the efficiency employed by Ryanair in operating expenses to reach a turnover of $27138222000. On the other hand the turnover of $2362.8m has been achieved by Easyjet at huge operating cost of $2271.8m. Net profit margins take into consideration all expenses including depreciation and finance expenses before taxes. It will be noted that Easyjet has shown improvement in net profits margin of 4.66% when compared to its own operating profit margins of 3.85. The reason is that Easyjet has net finance income and not the expenditure. It is because of this reason Ryanair/s net profit margin of 16.17% is lower than its operating profit margin of 19.79 as it has finance expenses are higher than finance income. But Ryanair’s net profit margin is certainly higher than Easyjet because of its efficiency shown in controlling the expenses. Return on capital employed (ROCE) is more realistic ratio of profitability â€Å"if the assets are stated at current value rather than at historical cost; that is, there is a revaluation reserve included in the capital employed.† (Philip Ramsden, page 42)ii Taking this limitation into account, Easyjet has a very poor ROCE of 3.81% as compared to 8.19% of Ryanair.

Pros and Cons of budgeting in modern environment

Pros and Cons of budgeting in modern environment Budgets are recognized as time-honored tools for planning and setting organizations goals, for communicating among corporate constituencies, and for providing basis for operating results review as well as performance evaluation. While it is difficult for firms to have perfect budgets that make use of all functions equally well, differential emphasis on the respective uses of budgets reflects the environment variation and contracting needs. The modern economic environment is associated with a rapidly changing environment, flexible manufacturing, short product life cycles and highly customized products and services (Abdullah N.B. 2008). The keys to survive is flexibility and rapid response whereby companies are able to move quickly to exploit opportunities as they arise and does not operate according to elaborate business plans (Abdullah N.B. 2008). We were being overtaken by events. Traditional planning and budgeting strategy had to give. Senior vice-president in Fujitsu Computer Products of America, Kevin T. Parker said that, department managers budgeted at the detail level before the company had agreed on strategic objectives. (Banham, R. 2000.) Fujitsu were long on process and short on valuable information to run the business. Department managers would forecast product availability and customer expectations independent of one another, then negotiate with top management for few times until they were final. This circuitous routine took two months, an exceptionally long period of time in the fast-paced computer industry. (Banham, R. 2000.) Most organizations recognize budgets as a key element in their management control systems, but the usefulness of budgets has generated intense discussion and debate. Budgets have been proven by some of the researches that budgets are less useful in todays highly challenging business environment. Traditional budgeting, budget planning is a top-down process which will not support the types of extreme decentralization and employee empowerment initiatives that are required for firms to be competitive today (Libby T., and Lindsay M., 2007). Budgets are no longer useful in the current environment Budgets constraint responsiveness and flexibility and are often a barrier to change. Traditional budgeting is focused on the achievement of the specific plan or budget and this resulted in organizations eyesight to constantly focus on how to achieve and beat the budget. But indeed, the objectives of a company should not be to beat the budget but to beat the competition. (Leone, A.J and Rock, S. 2000) Whereas, in traditional budgeting there is rarely an opportunity to amend, change or update the budget once it has been approved, should there be any changes in the environment or assumptions employed (Abdullah N.B. 2008). Thus, managers only can decision within the budget, but the particular decision that he make, might not be the perfect solution; managers are tended to abandon best solution due to not exceed the budget, and thus inhibits management response to change. This focus can act as a constraint, decreasing the firms flexibility and ability to adapt and deal with new opportunit ies, threats or changes in customers requirements (Abdullah N.B. 2008).Traditional budgets prevent empowerment and the opportunity for employees to contribute to the achievement of strategic objectives. It is blocking employee initiatives and demotivated employees, where employee initiative and motivation are needed in todays highly challenging environment, which can make a marked improvement in performance and productivity, thus it is a barrier to continuous improvement and success, because, less focus is given on how to maximize the organizations potential. According to the Shastri K. and Stout D.E., many segment-level employees1 than corporate-level employees felt that budgets had negative behavioral consequences in terms of employee initiatives, motivating short-term decision making, and pressure to achieve targets. Budgets encourage gaming and dysfunctional behavior. (Abdullah N.B. 2008). Libby T., and Lindsay M., (2007) explicitly addressed the issue of budget gaming. Majority of the respondents surveyed indicated that three gaming phenomena occur at least occasionally: spending money at year-end to avoid losing it the old-age use it or lose it syndrome, deferring necessary expenditures and negotiating easy targets the Segment-level was defined variously as a subsidiary, division, department, or product level. sandbagging syndrome (Libby T., and Lindsay M., 2007).This is especially the case when meeting the budget is directly linked with rewards and incentive payments to individuals and/or team. Indeed, many organizations incorporate budgetary performance subjectively into the overall performance evaluation of managers (Libby T., and Lindsay M., 2007). Moreover, managerial compensation plans, including incentive compensation formulas, incorporate achievement of specified budget objectives for financial performance measures. (Shastri K. and Stout D.E. 2008) The dual roles of budgeting gives rise to agency problems in the budget-setting process and affect the accuracy of budgets. Majority of participants seek to maximize their personal gain during the process of setting budgets. Once, goal congruence is not achievable, there are conflicts of interest between company and employees, and this is where the agency problems are occurred. Tying budget targets to compensation contracts encourages ma nagers to game the budgeting system to increase the probability they will receive positive performance evaluations and, therefore, any related bonus (Libby T., and Lindsay M., 2007). Budget gaming is when managers are use to receive positive performance. For examples, when companies are using budget integrated with incentive program, managers will try they best to show a good performance but gaming the budgets. Managers might defer necessary expenditures (such as, maintenance of machine, advertising cost, research and development) to meet current period budget targets, which will affect effectiveness and efficiency of company. Besides that, managers will take big bath when budget targets could not be attained, which mean the effort of producing the budget is not appreciated. Using budget as the tools of evaluating performance will lead to negative behavioral consequences. Budgets can still be useful in the current environment Budget should use as the basic for performance evaluation but not the only means to evaluate performance. As mentioned above, solely focus on budget as the only way to evaluate performance and compensate managers will result in agency problems. Agency problems will lead to company underperformance. Budget can be useful once, the incentive program is not mostly depending on it. In order to measure performance, budget is not the only option; companies should design an effective performance measurement system by integrated financial2 and non-financial3 indicators as tools of measuring efficiency or performance. Moreover, companies should design an effective system which can link to strategy and goals of the organization to encourage goal congruence, recognize controllability and emphasize on employees empowerment. By designing a system besides budget to measure performance can solve agency problem. Measure performance of managers based on controllability and responsibility, which mean t op management should back out non-controllable variances before comparing actual to budget. For instance, companies such as Allstate, Fujitsu, Nationwide Financial Services, Owens Corning, Sprint and Texaco, are compensating the managers for achieving measurable results (Banham, R. 2000). For example, when evaluate performance of production managers should back out the machine breakdown hours, because it was not under his controllability but is engineers responsibility. Besides that, provide incentive to managers who manage to generate an accurate budget, managers will tend to provide secret information to the budget, thus, it make the budget more accurate. In addition, Hope and Fraser propose a new management model to take the place of budgeting for control purposes. This new model is based on employee empowerment and alternative methods of performance management, which to suit the requirement of todays highly challenging environment (Libby T., and Lindsay M., 2007). Financial indicator such as, return on investment (ROI), residual income (RI) and economic value added (EVA). Non-financial indicator such as, benchmarking, balance-score card, customer satisfaction measures, defect measures, product quality measures, accident measures, machine downtime measures, delivery time measures and etc. Moreover, there is a new model which known as Beyond Budgeting was developed by two consultants, Jeremy Hope and Robin Fraser, in order to find and develop alternative tools to the planning and budgeting process (Abdullah N.B. 2008).This new model is based on employee empowerment and alternative methods of performance management (Libby T., and Lindsay M., 2007). Most of the organizations which are high profile companies, have abandoned the major annual budget preparation, the Beyond Budgeting Round Table (BBRT4) members realized that attempts to make incremental changes to improve the budgeting system by introducing zero-based, activity-based or faster budgeting are not solving the problems caused by the fast-changing business world (Abdullah N.B. 2008), but to change the underlying culture of contract, compliance and control embedded in the traditional budgeting. Beyond Budgeting model, BBRT have developed a generic model that is based on 12 principles to create a flexible a responsive management model with an underlying culture of responsibility, enterprise and learning. Companies that operate in a business environment that is market led, highly competitive and unpredictable, and in which intellectual capital is the key strategic resource; and which have already successfully implemented various management tools like the Balanced Scorecard, Activity-Based Management and Rolling Forecast, should be the ideal candidate for the Beyond Budgeting model. The BBRT is the combination of a new concept (beyond budgeting) and a community (round table). The BBRT community is an independent research collaborative that shares its knowledge across its global network through conferences and workshops. Source: Abdullah N.B. 2008. Chapter 3: Scenario of Corporate Planning and Budgeting in a rapidly changing environment. These 6 principles (Table 1.a) concern creating a flexible organizational structure in which authority is devolved to employees. The following 6 principles (Table 1.b) deal with designing an adaptive management process for a flexible organizational structure. Table 1.b: The 12 Beyond Budgeting Principles and Practices Source: Abdullah N.B. 2008. Chapter 3: Scenario of Corporate Planning and Budgeting in a rapidly changing environment. Conclusion Budgeting, despite being proven to effectively act as one of the building blocks of management control system, was commonly viewed as a restriction of companies flexibility and competitive ability. Yet, despite various criticisms, budgets are in fact alive and well, rather than becoming obsolete, most organizations use a traditional budget because they are easy to put together and simplify coordination of budget assumptions across different departments. This is the simplest method of budgeting. But, indeed, with a traditional budgeting, company might be underperformance. In order to be more competitive in today challenging world, adopting advanced budgeting approaches is needed as it is focus on empowerment employees as well as responsibility.

Universality of Death of a Salesman :: Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman's universality comes from its fundamental themes and ideas which will adhere to place and time period it is. They have the ability to connect with such a universal audience because they take into account human nature. We, as readers or viewers, of the play can connect with the concepts presented because they are part of our everyday lives. Let's start off with one of the major themes in the play, which is the pursuit of a dream. For Willy Loman, it is the American dream. His false notion of this dream, which he believes with firm conviction, if you are "well liked" and "personally attractive" you will do well in business and life. The American dream is something that can be pursued, but not the way Willy perceived it. For example, Chris Gardner, the successful owner of stock brokerage, went from being a homeless man sometimes sleeping in public bathrooms to opening becoming a multimillionaire. His rags to riches story, like many others, show hard work and dedicati on can help you achieve your goals. Thousands of people come into the U.S. each year, many of them with the hope of building a better life in the "land of opportunity." Dreams can vary. We all have dreams because we want to achieve more so we can have a better life, whether it is in terms of wealth, health, family, or happiness. However, even with dreams and achievements, we may not always be able to get what we desire. Willy Loman was unable to see this. Even with defeat staring at him, his denial as well as his inability to face it, blinded him from accepting the truth. Another thing that makes this play timeless is the idea that, regardless of who we are, each one of us is a salesman and we will continue to be salesman. For example, teachers sell their beliefs and ideas to their students. People aspiring for a job sell themselves to the employers. The same thing goes when applying for colleges or when finding a mate. So, in that sense, we have a little bit of Willy Loman in us making this connection we can relate to him and hope not to make his mistakes. Death of a Salesman is just as significant in this time period as it was in 1949 is because a common man is trying to make it in his world.

Philosophy of Gender Essay

Some people aspire for successful lives, but I think success is overrated. What I’m trying to do is living my life according to what I think is right. This means learning not only inside the classroom, but also outside. This is because I believe that education inside the classroom is very limited, which is why we should take the initiative to control our education.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   So I start my day by having breakfast. I also read the paper while eating. One must still be aware of the current political and social issues; we must never be isolated from society. These are the people’s issues, so we must not be isolated from what they are engaged in. We are working for a better society not for ourselves, but also for other people and the next generation, so we must be integrated with their issues.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   After breakfast, I go to school. In school, aside from attending class, I talk to the personnel. I ask their opinion on issues. I ask how their lives are. Through this way, I get a perspective on how they think. It is very interesting because they are usually very outspoken. Sometimes, I learn so much more from them than the textbooks they make us read in class.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   After class, I sometimes do volunteer work. I treat this as my â€Å"other class.† It supplements what I learn in class, and sometimes I get to apply what I learned inside the classroom as well. This class teaches me a lot, from relating with other people to critical thinking. Then I go home. I eat, study, then read. I may not have a lot of stuff, but I do have a lot of books.   I love reading. This opens my mind to a lot of possibilities, as well as solutions. I also love reading about great odds being surpassed by ordinary people.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   For a democracy to work, I think the citizens should be proactive people. For this to happen, they have to be trained even while in school. And this would entail letting them take control of their education, planning their own curriculum, carrying out their own lesson plan. When one speaks of a rational state of consciousness, one is talking of the state when one’s mind is consciously doing something, like crossing the street. This kind of state requires one’s full attention. When one speaks of non-rational consciousness, it is when one’s mind is engaging in an activity that one’s mind can do subconsciously; its whole attention is not on the activity. Habits and learned behavior fall under this state. An example would be tapping one’s foot. And when one talks of the irrational state, it is the state of being unconscious, such as sleeping deeply. When in this state, one is unaware of what is happening. Have you had your heart broken? I have, once. I loved her, but she left me. Maybe she thought the world is a better companion. I do not know. It has been years.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Her name was Lilith. She was a remarkable being, all magic and desire. She had hair that was like waterfalls cascading down to earth; fluid, wild, breath-taking, hypnotizing. Her body was like the hills and mountains of the earth, curvaceous and fertile. She also provided the   intellectual stimulation that I needed. In my youth, I was too arrogant and stubborn to see that.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   I had asked Father for a mate. I was lonely, and I had no one to share my experiences of naming and taking care of the creatures Father put under my care. I also wanted someone who would complement my efforts of organizing the whole of Creation, listening intently, while serving me a delicious meal. So I told the Father how lonely I was.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   He made a mate, and called it woman. I accepted her, and we lived together. I thought we were going to be happy together forever in paradise. I made her wait on me, serve me, obey me. I wanted her to only wander when I was with her. I wanted her to do all the domestic duties, because I was busy managing the Garden of Eden.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   We got along sometimes. Lilith, skilled with words, would contribute to my summary of what I did during the day, pointing out which names fitted the creature exactly. I thankfully used her suggestions, being inept with words, having been alone for some time. But mostly we fought day and night. We had different views on most things. She wanted to talk about how we feel; I could not successfully keep up with her analysis on why she is annoyed when the sheep just leaves its droppings lying around. She wanted to do things on her own; she could not understand that I was afraid of losing her, which is why I do not want her wandering off. She wanted the privilege of naming and managing the creatures in Creation; I could not make her understand that this was a job given to me, and she should try other activities in the Garden. She talked of how Eden could be made better; I would rather focus on the conditions now.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   So we fought. She would not do the things I told her were her duties as my wife. She said she wanted to do other things. She could not understand that her declining means undermining my authority. I know I should not have shouted at her and pulled her hair, but she made me angry. So when she left, I did not go looking for her. We have had disputes before, and though it is unlike her to not talk the problem over, I decided to pay no heed.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   But then, days after, she has not yet returned. So I told the Father of my concern. He sent messengers to her, but she would not yield. She would not come back to Eden, to me.

Bad Eating Habits

Judging from the tidal waves of low-fat foods washing up on supermarket shelves and the proliferation of health clubs popping up in cities, one would think that America has become the land of the lean and the home of the fit. However, this is not the case at all. The obesity problem is rising to epidemic proportion. It is beginning to spawn health problems and is even growing everyday. There are more and more people who are acquiring bad eating habits because of a lot of factors. The problem has gone to alarming proportions and it is time that experts on nutrition join hands to look more closely at the causes of these bad eating habits.People need to be more conscious about their increasing weight. As one eats, one becomes aware of how he/she feels when satisfied. When one is full and stuffed, one must decide to stop eating whenever he/she hits the full mark. People hear a lot of advises and one very good advice is â€Å"If you eat only when you are hungry and stop when you are sati sfied, then your body will reach its optimal weight. † However, this might be easily said than done for the statistics of overweight people continue to rise.Because of rising health costs, food experts say that we are essentially subsidizing the food industry to peddle junk food to kids. This is not that easy though since regulation is not an ideal solution. Multi-national corporations like Unilever, Pepsi and Coke had all voluntarily changed their products and practices to respond to clamor for growing health concerns. There was the pressure on them to do their own regulation in coming up with better, healthier foods. It was even revealed that Unilever was asked to reduce trans-fatty acids in their products. Unilever’s response was dramatic.It eliminated them altogether (World Economic Forum). However, Dr. Marion Nestle feels that poor nutrition is the ultimate reason for obesity. Diets lacking calcium, phosphorus and other nutrients tremendously affect the weight gain or loss of a teen’s fat cells. Dr. Bedell, agrees with the findings. † Any family below the poverty level has an incredible amount of outside stress,† she said. † If there’s no education of nutrition, it’s a matter of surviving emotionally and physically. † (Gard MC, 1996). Concern is expressed over the person’s tendency to eat between meals.However, the choice of foods is much more important than the time or place or eating. Fresh vegetables and fruits as well as whole grain products are needed to complement the foods high in energy value and protein that adolescents commonly choose. Similarly, a special concern in cultures today is the amount of fat in the diet. This person in study who has a low budgeted food is not exempted. She virtually lives on fast-food meals, which contributes to the increased fat levels in their diet. The average adolescent, though, does not worry about getting enough protein.What is of more concern is t he vast number of adolescents who consume large quantities of fast foods such as French fries and burgers, that are not only high in protein but high in fat (Drake, 2006). To illustrate this further, statistics show the fact that the average teenager watches approximately 22,000 commercials – 5,000 of them for food products, the majority of which are high-sugar, high-calorie, and low-nutrition items. Research indicates that 67 percent of Saturday morning commercials are for sugared cereals, candy bars, and other sweets. Only 3 percent of TV food ads are for fruits and vegetables (Medical News Today).Considering that some members of the average family watch more than seven hours of TV per day, it is not surprising that contemporary research indicates that human development and behavior are affected by television to a degree far exceeding earlier judgments (Robinson, T. , 1999). Promoting healthy diet and exercise remains one of the most challenging goals in today’s mode rn world. REFERENCES Drake, L. (26 April 2006). The USDA Food Guide Pyramid: New and Improved? Gard MC, Freeman CP, (1996), The dismantling of a myth: a review of eating disorders and socioeconomic status.Int J Eat Disord (1996), 20(1):1-12. Medical News Today, (13 May 2004). 10% of the world’s children are overweight or obese and the figures are rising Article Retrieved Feb. 12, 2006 at: http://www. medicalnewstoday. com/medicalnews. php? newsid=8277 Reducing the Size of the Obesity Problem, World Economic Forum, Jan. 24, 2004, Retrieved Feb. 12, 2007 at: http://www. weforum. org/site/knowledgenavigator. nsf/Content/_S10222? open&industry_id= Robinson, T. Reducing children’s television viewing to prevent obesity: A randomized controlled trial, Journal of the American Medical Association 1999: 282: 1581-1587

Differences between New England and Chesapeake Colonies DOC essays

Differences between New England and Chesapeake Colonies DOC essays When the colonists settled America, many of them had different reasons, beliefs, and accomplishments to set for themselves. Whatever the reason, North and South, (New England and Chesapeake, respectively), evolved into two distinct societies, because of social, political, and economic reasons. Social life changed both colonies dramatically. First off, you have the New England settlers, who came to the Americas because of religious persecution in England and surrounding areas. As seen in Document A, John Winthrop states, We must knit together in this work as one man. This article basically defines the Puritan ways, and gave strength to the Puritans coming to the Americas. John Winthrop also states that their goal was to form "a city upon a hill", which represented a "pure" community, where Christianity would be pursued in the most correct manner. In Chesapeake, the reasons for coming to American werent because of the strict confines of the Anglican Church, it was because they were wealthy snobs and wanted even more. (by trying to find something valuable). Document F states that all everyone wanted to do was dig, wash, refine, and load gold. What a waste of time, because no one came out rich like the Spanish. Document D, a list of immigrants bound for New England, suggests family unity. Document E, however, for the Chesapeake, suggests no one thought for staying long, and well, that totally messed up things there. Also, more women came with the immigrants to New England. In Chesapeake, there must have been lots of schoolboy fights for girls. The religions were different (Puritanism in New England and Anglican in Virginia). Indians threatened both colonies, or thats how the colonists saw it. Massacring all the Indians wasnt right, but thats ok, we (Americans) were extremely stupid back then, but now, were only a slight level of idiocy. The Chesapeake, however, werent as violent with the ...