The economic crisis and Hospitality Industry in EU Essay Example for Free

The economic crisis and Hospitality Industry in EU Essay The report prepared on the Economic crisis and the hospitality industry in Europe, is an attempt to have an insight on the major reasons responsible for the economic crisis in the European Hospitality sector. It also takes the attentions towards the effective and strong measures taken by the Nation at the EU level and the national level to survive during the bad economy time. It was identified that the option of reducing their operating costs was one of major strategies followed by the enterprises in the tourism sector of Europe, along with this the economic crisis gave a strong reason for the small enterprises to review their business methodologies so as to be able to manage their business during the crisis period and also to increase the ratio of their profitability in the future times to come. The European Hospitality sector has survived in the year 2009 and it is pacing towards the recovery path in the current year. Studies reveal that the European hospitality industry will be able to stabilise itself by year 2011 and it is sure that Europe will definitely be able to bring back its economy as they all stand united at times of need. Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said â€Å"Yes, Europe has the unity, the confidence and determination to win this battle†. Introduction Global economy crisis has left no sector untouched but it can be argued and debated over that the most adversely affected sector in Europe is the entertainment and tourism sector. In other words, we can straight away state that Europe’s Hospitality industry is the most badly hit sector in the economic crisis. The prime reason related with this is that the leisure and tourism get immediately and easily affected with the economic fluctuations going on in any country or location. Almost all the travel activities require an optimal amount of expenditure to be made by an individual for the fun, entertainment and relaxation of his family or friends and people are comfortable spending money for fun only at the favourable economic times. At the time of recession or the economic crisis, they would rather prefer to save their money for the unforeseen hard times that they might have to face in their future time to come. Thus they might consider saving their extra money for their basic necessities like shelter, food and other family requirements. Although, this does not mean that people stop travelling completely but their frequency of travelling might get a bit down because of the economic fluctuation and the tourists and travellers might adapt the idea of spending bit less on travel than their planned expenditure. Experts state that the tourism and hospitality business that can adapt to the situation that they can provide the best quality of services and customer satisfaction on a tighter budget too can only survive at the time of economic crisis. There is a possibility that the customers/travellers do not expect luxurious kind of services but would be interested if they get the low cost services and this fundamental fits perfectly to the airline and the hospitality industry of Europe, too. Trevor J Ward, Managing Director, W Hospitality Group, told that there has been a loss of confidence in the whole banking system in Europe, which has reduced lending to businesses and individuals, and this reduction in credit is affecting businesses and consumers alike. The fall in the house prices has affected the other business activities and consumer spending too and it has in a way affected the European hotel industry. HOTREC (Confederation of the National Hotel and Restaurant Associations in the EC) HOTREC is the name for the trade association of hotels, restaurants and cafes in Europe. They have combined together 40 national hospitality associations in around 24 countries across Europe. European hospitality industry comprises of almost 9. 5 million workers having network of Around 1. 7 million enterprises. HOTREC works towards the objective to promote the hospitality industry in Europe. Their motive of execution is to create more number of jobs for the European people and thus boost the economy of Europe by enabling the hotels, restaurants and cafes to create more job opportunities. HOTREC works extensively towards achieving a competitive and stable tourism industry in Europe. All the policies are made and implemented by HOTREC with the vision to encourage the creation of environment positive for the development of the hospitality sector. The Economic crisis and the hospitality industry The economic crisis has left no sector untouched and so the European hospitality industry is no less affected with this economic crisis. There are various zones or segments of the tourism industry that has got badly hit with this crisis. It has directly affected the business travels which were quite frequent in Europe and was a key contributor in the profit earning of the European hotels and cafes but with this crisis the industry has seen tremendous fall down in the business travel of the people coming to Europe. Not only the business travels, but the business events like the conferences, the presentations and the seminars which were quite in trend in Europe also got severely affected with the economic crisis and this again has brought the profitability graph of the European Hotels and cafes. It is true that the although the industry has experienced a slowdown in the business travels and the business events, people are still trying to figure out the best deals in the lowest possible rates that fit to their budget and serve their purpose too as they are able to let their business function smoothly irrespective of this economic crisis. They also try to find out the hotels which can provide them with the basic services without asking them to pay a hefty amount for their stay in the hotel. In a survey conducted by DLA PIPER 2009, the respondents were asked the major reasons for their lack of confidence in the Europeans hospitality industry during this economic crisis and the survey consisted of a couple of questionnaires like the Struggling European economy, Lack of liquidity, Current operating performance of hotels, Time and cost restraints on consumer travel, Reduced business travel, Lack of confidence in Europe’s political leaders, Struggling US economy etc. Around 43% of the people considered lack of liquidity and almost 33% considered the struggling European economy to be the major contributors to the rapid downfall in the confidence level. A study stated that out of many other reasons required to cope up with the effect of economic crisis in the hospitality industry in Europe the low cost of credit can be considered to be an effective step fighting against the crisis of funds and it is believed that the European commercial banks will be the most active type of lender in the European hospitality industry in the coming year as they will work towards lowering their cost of credit and thus it will be beneficial to the hospitality sector which is struggling due to the economic crisis. Data about European Hospitality industry This question is of major concern that that how long will this economic crisis go and how will all the European sectors survive in this bad economy when the entire world is getting affected with this global economic crisis. Despite other sectors, the European hotel industry is getting severely hit with this crisis and this can be well understood by the data illustrated below. An analysis done by IMF, stated that Europe’s biggest economy, Germany will get severely affected during this crisis with a 5. 6-percent GDP decline in 2009 and a 1. 0-percent dip in 2010, while the GDP in the euro area, completely is expected to be going down to 4. 2 percent in 2009 and 0. 4 percent in 2010. The data reveals that the GDP rate will go down by 1. 5% in last quarter of the year as compared to the third quarter which is definitely a sign of concern and effective steps required to be taken to come out of this problem. Talking about the unemployment figures in the European hospitality sector in the year 2009, as compared to the numbers of year 2008, the statistics show that there will be a rise in the unemployment from 6,8% to 7,6% in EU27 and it will go up from 7,2% to 8,2% in Euro area. It is a matter of great concern and worry for the government of any country when they are experiencing a steady downfall in their GDP and their graph of unemployment is going high in any of its business sectors and that calls for the time when they all need to unite together to fight against this severe crisis as this is the indication of a very big crisis for that particular nation and the data clearly states that Europe is struggling badly with this situation and needs remedial measures which are effective enough to bring Europe’s hospitality industry to come out of this situation. The data also describes that there has been a visible drop in the European economic sentiment indicator which is also an important reason of the low confidence in the European hospitality industry. Figures state that the Economic Sentiment indicator, in short termed as ESI went down by 2. 2 points while it was earlier stable at 61. 0 points during Janaury-09 –February 09 in EU27. While it went down from 65. 4 points to 63. 6 points thus showing a downfall of 1,8 points in the Euro area. When the entire globe is suffering from this problem of recession and bad economy, Europe is also facing the hit back in the tourism industry. A study revealed that the tourism prospects in the year 2009, for European cities will be a stage of stagnation or it may even go down by around 3% than the earlier times and figures. A survey conducted by Deloitte and Touche on the European hotels revealed that the occupancy rate of rooms in the hotels of Europe went down from 69. 3% in the year 2007 to 66. 9% in the year 2008. Although all the major cities of Europe have suffered due to this crisis but the most badly affected cities are Rome, Dublin and Prague. According to the Eurobarometer survey conducted on the 27,000 tourists coming to 27 EU countries for their holidays with family and friends in the year 2009 , the study reflected that around 1/3 of the people stated that there has been a drastic change in the plans which they make for their travel and leisure by decreasing their accommodation cost budget, out of which around 38% belonged to the category of completely swiping out the option of going to Europe for their holidays, others stated that there will be no change in their cost of accommodation budget due to this economic crisis. The study also stated that to fight against this crisis and still not completely go away with their idea of going on holidays, they would rather do little bit of adjustments and comprises to fit the holiday budget to their pocket. 15% of the surveyors stated that they would save on accommodation, 23% mentioned that they would prefer to go on vacation in the low season when the prices will automatically come down and they do not need to cut down on their estimated budget, 23% mentioned that they would try to cut down on their restaurant expenses and 30% mentioned to cut down their shopping budget to manage their vacation and enjoy with their families and friends. Economic Crisis with low confidence The Economic crisis when followed with the lowering of confidence in any sector becomes a reason of great concern and worry for the government of any nation and the situations like this needs an immediate attention and plan of action as if it is not dealt in time it may lead to adverse consequences for the economy of any nation. Such thing was experienced by the European hospitality industry in the year 2009. The data gathered by DLA Piper 2009, Europe Hospitality Outlook survey on the reasons of low confidence on the European hospitality industry during the time of economic crisis were found to be Struggling European economy, current operating performance of hotels, time and cost restraints on consumer travel, Lack of liquidity (debt or equity), Struggling US economy, Reduced business travel and last but not the least Lack of confidence in Europe’s political leaders. A survey done by DLA Piper’s 2009 Europe Hospitality Outlook Survey stated that almost 84 % of participants consider the European hospitality market to be bearish. Majority of the participants of the survey did not expect the European hospitality industry to come back to its original state until year 2011. Almost 70% of the people have cut down on their business travel due to the economic crisis. The survey also tried to gather numbers regarding the investment options in the European hotel industry and it found that around 71% of respondents believe that investment in Sustainable hotel development is a long-term trend. And there is a widespread risk of bankruptcy for European hotel chains. The major concern of the participants was the clause passed by EU Parliament regarding the potential removal of an EU country’s right to opt-out from the Working Time Directive which limits to an employee’s working hours to forty eight hours only. They mentioned this to be a very strong reason to put a negative impact on the European hospitality industry. Recovery Plans of European Hospitality Industry It is a fact that the European hospitality industry, along with the other sectors has suffered major setbacks in the year 2009 due to the economic crisis and this can be well described and understood by the data gathered by DLA Piper 2009, Europe Hospitality Outlook survey. The survey revealed that almost 84% of the participants mentioned the European hospitality market to be the bearish one when queried regarding their confidence in the European economy they stated Expected rebound of European economy, Foreign investment in European market, Abundance of equity capital available for investment, Expected rebound of US economy, Investment opportunities created by financial crisis and Confidence in Europe’s political leaders as the factors that in any situation will let the European hospitality industry come out of any such crisis in the present time and in the future times to come. European hospitality industry along with the major tourism associations like WTTC, UNWTO, HOTREC and PASTA are quite optimistic towards the idea that European hospitality sector will be able to cope up with this economic crisis and will easily survive this hard economic time. European tourism sector has faced a lot of obstacles till the time it has reached the 21st Century and developed such face of tourism for the entire world. Although, it is a true fact that this sector will go through hard times in the next coming months but the enterprises which are flexible enough to adapt to the required business model and plan their strategies keeping in mind the existing scenario will easily be able to survive and develop a strong platform for their existence in the long run in the European Hospitality industry. The recovery plan to successfully face the problem of economic crisis has been divided into a few segments or divisions so as to leave no stone unturned to fight with this scenario and bring back the economy to its stable state. It was segmented as 1. Recovery at EU level 2. Recovery at National Level We will discuss in brief the steps and measures taken at both the levels to beat the Economic crisis. 1. Recovery at EU level The European government considered dealing with the economic crisis quite seriously and so they planned the various meetings of the EU heads of State. They all mutually agreed upon following three lines of actions so as to come out of this situation. First one was to promote the financial stability in such a way that the confidence level of the people gets a boost again on the government along with the European Economy which is badly affected with the economic crisis. Second plan of action was to get the real economy to the shape where it was earlier, and third one was the most important one. It was to stay tightly united to fight against the crisis and to work together at the global level. The third measure sounded bit simple to sate but it was the most effective plan of action to get out of such a critical situation. Several measures were taken by the Government at the EU level out of which one measure specifically taken by the EU state with regards to the hospitality industry was to change the existing VAT Rate system. The new provision stated that all the member states will be granted the permission to apply for a reduced VAT Rate for the restaurant services. The current provision had this option to only 11 members so now this will be applicable to all the member states in EU.

Standardized Testing Essay examples -- Standardized Testing Essays

Standardized Testing Every year thousands upon thousands of children, ages seven and upwards sit down to take their scheduled standardized tests. This generation has been classified as the most tested in history. 'Its progress through childhood and adolescence' has been 'punctuated by targets, key stages, attainment levels, and qualifications' ('Stalin in School' 8). Each year the government devises a new standard and then finds a way to test how each student measures up to this standard. They have come to the conclusion that the easiest way to chart the success of school reform is to follow the results of standardized testing. But rating education strictly by the numbers is the wrong way to measure a process as complex as learning, and teaching kids how to memorize facts and remember dates is an altogether different achievement from teaching them how to make sense out of new ideas and experiences. This system of testing currently used is based on academic standards. These academic standards are clearly written expectations of what every child should know and be able to do at specific grade levels. They usually only test the core school subjects such as math, science, language arts, and social studies. For example, 'in Wisconsin, the standards were written for English/Language Arts, Math, Social Studies and Science at the 4th, 8th, and 12th grade levels' ('Standards and Assessments Q&A'). These standards are usually written by educators, and parents serving on special committees and sometimes by commercial test makers. However, as you will see these standards do not cover true learning. True learning involves teaching the students to think logically and form their own conclusions based on facts and inferences, not memorization and regurgitation of facts. These facts would be useless to the students if they were not able to use logic to connect these facts and make educated decisions. Nevertheless, the core school subjects do not include this. According to Brady, ?School subjects are just convenient organizers of information. As all effective teachers know, the real challenge isn't to stuff kids' heads with secondhand information, but to teach them to think, to draw inferences, generate hypotheses, formulate generalizations, explore systemic relationships, make defensible value judgments, and so on.? Education is not about how well a student can me... ...terns, evaluate situations, and make inferences and logical decisions based on facts and observations. And furthermore rating education and a student?s progress strictly through numbers is the wrong way to measure a process as complex and intricate as learning. Works Cited Brady, Marion. 'Not-yet-answered questions about standardized testing.' Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service 28 Jan. 2003: K. Clarke, Kevin. 'Why students are feeling so testy.' U.S. Catholic July 2000: 27. Gallagher, Tom. 'The Case Against Standardized Testing: Raising the Scores, Ruining the Schools.' The Progressive Aug. 2001: 44. 'How Standardized Testing Damages Education.' FairTest: The National Center for Fair and Open Testing. Moon, Tonya, Catherine Brighton, Carolyn Callahan. ?State standardized testing programs: friend or foe of gifted education? (On Gifted Students in School).' Roeper Review Wntr 2003: 49. Morse, Jodie. 'To Test and Test Not.' Time 6 Oct. 2000. 27 Mar.2003.   Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚   'Stalin in School.' New Statesman 17 June 2002: 8. 'Standards and Assessments Q&A.' Advocates for Education of Whitefish Bay.2002. 27 Mar.2003. < http://www.fairtest.org/arn/wislet.html>.

More and More on Technology Essay

They are the ‘machines’ which just receive their leaders’ requirements and relying on machines to complete without thinking. Becoming shortsighted and lose their belief, human act just for only financial purpose, regarding the progress and the negative effects. There have been many crises appearing one by one at the aspect of environmental pollution, religious conflicts and the injustice in the social wealth. For example, the Rhine has lost the beauty described by Friedrich HÃ ¶lderlin, a major German lyric poet, and been forced to be cut off and be a hydropower station to produce electricity as a slave to sever for human. Nature has changed its role, losing its previous holy, and become a serious of progress of being exploded, transformation, storage and distribution. There is not anybody like the Indians in New Mexico, refusing to use steel plough to tillage. Why? Is it just a rejection of using the plough? It’s absolutely not. At the aspect of Indians, land is their mother and they should respect and protect her as a part of their bodies and using the steel plough to cultivate the land equals to doing harm to their mother. Itis not a foolish behavior. In contrast,it completely shows they still have the loyalty and the pure soul comparing with those numb people lost in the frigid material world. What’s more, human are just rescued by technology but lose in their own dilemma created by themselves. For women, suffering from the twisted complex ethics and aesthetics, they are on the heavier social pressure of every behavior given by the followed medium. Even the weight, the figure and the action of the every part of their body are strictly required and involved in their ethics. They have to limit their desire to make the body slim and the culture of blind diet and losing weight, causing women live in a nervous station and get psychological disease. To sum up, technology, different from machine, is a dynamic progress where human use machine system to communicate with the nature to balance the relative relationships. It is a positive product of human exploring the objective world but human cannot rely on to seriously. Though most of people are the user of new technology and not the finder, our thought should not be limited by technology. We should consider how to use the technology to make the world harmonious and serve human more effectively.

The Right to Vote in the US for African Americans - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 4 Words: 1270 Downloads: 1 Date added: 2019/03/29 Category Society Essay Level High school Tags: Discrimination Essay Did you like this example? The United States of America was founded on principles which included but not limited to Individual Liberty and the idea that All men are created Equal. Meaning every citizen has freedom and rights. The most basic and common right of a United States citizen is the right to vote. It is one of the most basic but most important rights of American citizen, Without the right to vote citizens do not have a voice or say so in their country. Every United States citizen has the right to vote, but under certain circumstances which continue to change. Although everyone has a right to vote, it has not always been that way and is still not completely accurate. This is so because according to the Constitution in Article I Section 4 the handling and control of elections were left up to state legislature. Due to that article and many factors including racial discrimination, many continue to gain and lose the right to vote. Racial discrimination is an unfair treatment or bias against someone or a group of people on the basis of their race, said Collins English Dictionary. This trend of unfair treatment can be traced throughout Americas history with a few examples including slavery, Jim crow laws and felon disenfranchisement. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "The Right to Vote in the US for African Americans" essay for you Create order Leaving control and rule of elections to state legislature led to unfair voting practices for those of color. This began with slavery. Slaves were not considered a citizen or a whole person even when deciding how population would determine how many would be represented in the house, the electoral college and taxes. Slaves were first considered property, so by law they were not allowed to vote because during this time you had to be a white male owning property later changing to a white male of age. Slaves became equivalent to three fifths of a white person, represented by the three fifths compromise. After the civil war ended slavery, along came the ratification of the fourteenth amendment. Southern states, stated that citizenship is granted to all persons born or naturalized in the US, including slaves. Therefore, slaves were citizens but of course still could not vote due to states having control over voting. The 15 Amendment would soon come in to help those of color. It stated that the right to vote can not be denied based off race. Although many would think that voting would be easy for those of color at this point it only became even more difficult leading to more racial discrimination to hold those of color from their right to vote. After the 15th amendment was passed in 1870 other racist, discriminatory acts and laws were put in place to prevent those of color from voting. For a brief moment those of color could register to vote openly. Due to the withdrawal of Federal troops from the south, a huge component of Racial Discrimination came back into play. Soon after, the small amount of color people who were able to pass test would shrink to an even smaller amount. The Klu Klux Klan quickly rearose in the Old Confederacy. The Klu Klux Klan is a white supremacist group devoted to preserving white supremacy. They use hate crimes, leadership roles and scare tactics to prevent those of color from voting. The KKK would soon take over the south with winning political positions and turn most states into democratic states. For example, legislature would soon run into problems with their new laws because it affected some of the white community. In 1890, Mississippi had a convention to write a new state constitution. White officials associated with the KKK were clear on their intentions by making statements such as, We came here to exclude the Negro, declared the convention president. So, in 1900, would come the grandfather clause, allowing anyone whose grandfather or father could vote before 1867 to skip these discriminatory tests. Other Discriminatory laws included, literacy and property test. For example, the literacy test in Mississippi required applicants to recite and write a portion of the states constitution and a full essay on the responsibilities of being a citizen. Law makers knew that many people of color were not very educated and would not be able to pass the test in order to register to vote. Instead of saying this they chose to say that these tactics would ensure educated and knowledgeable voters. Throughout the next thirty years African Americans outgrew Poll tax and Literacy test. But threats of death, unemployment, becoming homeless, being denied credit, mob violence including KKK would keep those of color away from the polls. By 1940 only about three percent of blacks were registered to vote in the south with only one percent in Mississippi, due to racial discrimination. With these numbers, people of color had no say so in their towns nor states. So once again due to racial discrimination, those of color could not vote; leaving them without a basic right. Leaders in the black community and northerners would soon begin to fight back. But their attempts to get those of color to vote led to violence and death threats. The attempts would turn into the civil rights movement in the early 1950s. Color people in the South demanded their rights granted to them as any other citizen would get and started voter registration drives throughout the South. For example, Medgar Evers was stopped by a white mob from voting in Mississippi. He would soon become a civil rights activist, but due to his heroic civil rights activities, he was killed at his home by a white supremacist. Because of people like Medgar Evers and Martin Luther King, forty percent of color people were registered to vote by 1964. Also, in that same year the 24th amendment was ratified, and poll taxes would soon be ruled unconstitutional. The African American community went through many other trials and tribulations dealing with voting in the south. Including the Selma march in Selma, Alabama, which was a televised showing of how bad and horrible those of color were treated for wanting to exercise a basic right. This pushed the current president, Lyndon Johnson to pass laws to enforce African Americans right to vote. Then the voting rights act of 1965 was signed into law and ruled out any type of discrimination against those of color when trying to use their basic right to vote. African Americans over the years and even in present day exercise their right to vote. Racial discrimination is not as bold as it was but still exist in hidden ways. For example, in the latest elections throughout the south, on election day voting stations in mostly black areas were closed or many people were told they could not vote due to unforeseen circumstances. Ballots were lost or left places that contained mostly black votes. For example, in Georgia many people who tried registering to vote before the deadline applications were denied or held until after the elections for unforeseen reasons. Also, in many states due to the overwhelming number of black people who have been to jail, laws were put in place to take away voting rights of felons. That too has begun to change thanks to the state of Florida voting to allow felons to vote. Although there has been a lot of progress within the black community, it took years and a lot of struggle, blood, sweat and tears to get to the point where we are now. Racial discrimination played an overall major role in the roller-coaster ride we call the right to vote. The discrimination against those of color exist in many aspects of our world and voting rights is just the start.