Welcome is a course for people working or planning to work in the tourism industry at the lower intermediate to intermediate level. It covers a range of work areas--hotels, restaurants, travel agencies--and focuses on the employees dealing with customers in a variety of typical situations. The course contains 50 90-minute lessons on double page spreads so it is easy to use. The 50 units are grouped into ten thematic modules. The course develops all four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing, but places particular emphasis on getting students to carry out realistic and engaging communicative tasks. The Student's Book, which is in colour, is accompanied by a Teacher's Book and the audio material is available on both cassette and CD.
High Season English For The Hotel And Tourist Industry Cd 1
Along with the loss of life, SARS caused severe economic losses (Taipei Times, 2003b). The epidemic had the most serious impact on the tourism industry: hotels, restaurants, theme parks, and airlines (China Post, 2003a; Taipei Times, 2003c; Taiwan Headlines, 2003). Thousands of business meetings and vacations were cancelled (Economist, 2003). Conference calls and travels to neighboring tourism destinations by cars became the norm. SARS had an immediate and devastating impact on Taiwan's hotel industry (Taipei Times, 2003d). The situation was exacerbated when hotels offered discounts and special promotions in the midst of a sharp business decline, which had been triggered by the spread of the SARS. For example, the Ambassador Hotel Taipei charged New Taiwan Dollar (NT$) 3300 for a room, over 50 percent below the regular rate of NT$6800 (China Post, 2003b).
According to the Taiwan Stock Exchange, there are six companies included in the tourism industry. Five of the six operate hotels: Ambassador Hotel, First Hotel, Grant Formosa Regent Taipei, Hotel Holiday Garden, and Leofoo Hotel. Those five companies are known as large hotel companies. In addition, the stocks of two other hotel companies, Hotel Landis Taipei and Hotel Royal Chihpen, are traded in the over-the-counter (OTC) market. More detailed financial information of those seven hotel companies is shown in Table 1.
Traditionally, springtime is the high season for the hotel business in Taiwan as the majority of international trade shows and exhibitions are scheduled during the months of April and May (China Post, 2003b). However, due to the plunge in travel and business meetings, following the outbreak of SARS, the average occupancy rate of local five-star hotels fell from the normal 70 percent to less than 30 percent (China Post, 2003b). Several hotels catering to Japanese visitors, the primary international tourist market, lost as much as half of their Japanese bookings, and resorted to a price reduction program to lure more tourists, thus resulting in an even greater loss of their sales revenue. Thus, many hotels tried to cut costs by closing unoccupied floors or ordering employees to take unpaid leave (China Post, 2003c).
As part of the tourism industry, hotel business in Taiwan was also severely affected by SARS during the first half of 2003. Due to the large decrease in leisure and business visitors, the occupancy rates of five-star hotels dropped by as much as 40 percent and average room rates also plummeted during the SARS outbreak. To offset the dramatic losses of revenue, most hotel management adopted cost-reduction strategies: closing some floors, reducing operating hours of food and beverage facilities, asking employees to take non-paid leave, and stopping all overtime payments (Pine and McKercher, 2004).
This research examined the effect of the SARS outbreak on Taiwanese hotel stock performance. Seven publicly traded hotel companies had significant declines in their earnings and stock prices during the SARS period. Such a finding indicated that hotel stocks, on average, were exposed to above-market-average risk during the SARS outbreak period, which is consistent with the common perception that the hotel industry is most vulnerable to a decrease in the number of tourists. It suggests that investors expect hotel stock prices to react negatively to a future epidemic and ask for a higher return to compensate for higher risk.
Table 4presents the CARs for four models and ten industries within the 10-day event windows before the SARS outbreak. As shown in Table 4, the estimated CARs during the 10-day period prior to the SARS outbreak were not statistically significant across all the models and industries. Thus, these results indicated that the value of CAR for the hotel industry as well as the other industries was not different from zero in the absence of the SARS influence and no significant abnormal returns were witnessed before SARS outbreak (Table 5)
In comparison, the estimated CARs over the event window (0, 10), i.e. the 10-day period after SARS outbreak, the negative CARs were found to be statistically significant at the 5% level for seven out of ten industry sectors. However, only for the hotel and foods industries among those seven sectors, the negative CARs of all four models were statistically significant at the 5% level. Among the four models, the market model showed the weakest results for most industries in general.
The results of this research clearly showed that a tragic event like the SARS outbreak dampened the Taiwan stock market. Due to the widespread global panic about SARS and intensive news coverage, the catastrophic event could result in an irrational market response (e.g., a sell-off, a panic, or a contagion effect). A contagion effect prevails in case that unpredictability concerning some stocks is transferred to other stocks in the same or related industry. Among different segments of the tourism industry, stock prices of hotels could have immediate negative reaction right after the SARS outbreak, and other industry segments such as restaurant, travel agency, rental car companies could also be directly exposed to significantly negative stock market returns. The influence of the SARS outbreak on the tourism industry was quickly assimilated into declining stock prices in reality. Thus, accompanied by a sharp decline in sales revenue and cash flow due to significant decrease in occupancy and average daily rate, a widespread panic caused stakeholders who invested in hotels to perceive higher risk and to require higher rate of return for their investment in Taiwan. Therefore, hotel investors considered their stocks over-valued, resulting in sell-off of their stocks.
For most players in the travel industry, the idea of vacationers lounging on a beach thousands of miles from home or sailing the high seas seems like a distant memory. Globally, countries experienced a decline of 35 to 48 percent in tourism expenditures last year compared with 2019. Vietnam, with its ten-month international border closure, has not been exempted.
Local demand can be revitalized by focusing on emerging destinations with the joint cooperation of local governments, online travel agencies, attractions, hotels, and airlines. Outdoor tourism that involves sunshine, beaches, mountains, and nature were among the top choices for Vietnamese travelers after the lockdown was lifted in mid-May last year, and airports at the two big travel hubs of Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi were busy. To further tap into the domestic opportunity, operators will have to focus on affordability while striving to maintain high-quality products and experience.
Instead of spending on luxury accommodations, travelers are saving money for destination experiences. Many tourists are booking activities before they travel, which suggests the in-destination experience has a bigger impact in the overall tourist decision-making process. Many adventure activities, such as cave discovery, highland hiking, isolated island stays, water sports, and food festivals have become the main reason for travelers to visit a destination in the first place.
In 1929, Mexican president Emilio Portes Gil officially announced the country's entry into the tourism industry.[10] Over the next few years, the industry stayed small because of the ongoing Great Depression, so the government focused its attention on research and was ready after World War II to welcome tourists who could no longer visit Europe instead.[10]
The Mexican government developed beach resorts in the 1940s and 1950s in Acapulco, under president Miguel Alemán, who in his post-presidency became Commissioner of Tourism. Other beach resorts on the Pacific coast were also developed, including Mazatlan, Puerto Vallarta and on the Baja California peninsula at Cabo San Lucas. Later on the Yucatan Peninsular the government promoted the development of Cancún.[13][14] The importance of tourism in Mexico has seen its head having a cabinet-level position.[2] Attracting tourists from the developed world spurred the construction of upscale hotels, particularly by U.S. hotel chains.[15] San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato developed as an artists' colony. Unlike beach resorts developed by the Mexican government, San Miguel was promoted to tourists by locals.[16]
In the 2017 Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI) report, which is a measurement of the factors that make it attractive to developing business in the travel and tourism industry of individual countries, Mexico was ranked 22nd place in the world's ranking, with tourist service infrastructure rank 43; price competitiveness 63; health and hygiene, 72; safety and security, 113; environmental sustainability, 116.[20]
In places like Cancún, low-wage workers often live in cities outside of the tourist hotspot, in conditions far from that of the resorts and beaches enjoyed by foreign tourists.[23] These people, who typically work in the service sector or construction, often don't make enough money to be able to access these beaches or participate in any of the recreational activities they make possible through their jobs.[23] Additionally, migrant workers can feel pressure to change their language and their clothing styles to fit in with the more Americanized culture of the areas.[24] However, not everyone working in the tourist industry has these same issues, such as those involved with ownership, investment, and even architecture and engineering.[23] 2ff7e9595c