NEWS

Sheer Excitement!

Tuesday August 6

I have received half of the final projects. Thank you for getting them in to me on Monday. Wednesday is the last day that I will accept the final project - grades are due on Friday. The projects that I have received have been very creative and well written.

You have the opportunity to do a course evaluation on this class on the web. I would encourage you to do this and include written comments that would help me evaluate the class. This is the second summer Resort Management has been taught on the web and I feel pretty good about it in general but want to improve some parts of it and your comments will be helpful. You can also email me any comments or suggestions. For the evaluation go to http://www2.nau.edu/~evalj-p/ACAP/ Your contact is Erin Bertelsen. She can also be reached at 928 523-0250 or 800 426-8315. You should complete the evaluation this week to ensure that it is included in the final course evaluation. The class information is HA401 Resort Management section 801 sequence number 67013

I would like to know if you think the number of assignments is ok, too many or too few. I thought about adding an internet assignment but dropped it. Let me know what you think.

I hope you enjoyed the class and that it was a positive and worthwhile learning experience. If I can help any of you in the future, please let me know. I am especially interested in helping place our students in resort internships. Good luck with the rest of your studies. JAH

Friday July 25

Hopefully you have completed your final module summary for module 4 and are working on your final project. I have been out of town visiting the Four Seasons Aviara Resort in San Diego. I will be catching up on your assignments this weekend so you should know where you stand in the class. The final project is due Monday August 5.

Some of you have not completed the module 4 assignment on developing a rate structure for a resort. It requires you to think about logical room rates, golf fees, spa treatment prices. You don't have to do any food and beverage menus. Set the prices for high season and low season. These should be in a separate exhibit and explained in your three page paper. remember assumptions are necessary to explain why you are setting your rates. Refer to the Readings on Foundations of Financial Analysis on revenues for assistance.

Your final project is intended to have you work on a resort interest that you have - spa, golf or specialty restaurant. Refer to the Final Project description found in The Foundations of Marketing module. There is additional information in the July 5 NEWS update. Please email me if you have any questions. I would like to hear what your final project will be. It is 6-8 written pages with exhibits for rate structure, one year revenue pro forma, and your floor layout for the spa or specialty restaurant and your 18 hole golf layout from the six golf courses provided in the links. The spa links will also give you examples of spa treatment lists and prices. You can mail or fax me any final project material that can't be easily sent over emial. My address is Jon Hales, NAU/HRM, San Francisco and McCreary Streets, P.O.Box 5638, Flagstaff, AZ 86011.

Good luck and let me know if you have any questions.

Friday July 5

I hope everyone had a great July 4th holiday. We are moving towards the last few assignments and I want to give you some current information that will help you these last few weeks. Remember, the class ends August 7.

1. Your module 3 summary on the mareketing plan is due today, July 5. If you have questions on this assignment let me know asap so that we can complete this module. If you have any marketing questions, please email me so that you are comfortable with your understanding of resort marketing.

2. There will be no Internet assignment. I would like you to concentrate on your final project which is worth 100 points.

3. I would like you to email me with questions when you start module 4 on finanical operations of resorts. There is a lot of financial information in this module and I want to get a idea how well you are understanding the material. So please email me and let me know how you are doing before you work on the module 4 assignment.

4. You should be thinking about your final project. Let me know which of the spa, golf or specialty restaurant choices that you want to do your project on. I will discuss with you in more detail what your final project should include and hopefully help you with the material or questions. Part of the financial challenges of resorts is the high, low and shoulder seasons. Often you make a lot of profit during the high season, hold your own and break even in the shoulder seasons, and then loose money or show a loss in the low season. Your final proiect will ask you to do a proforma with two seasons, your high and low seasons. So you need to come up with two rate and volume structures, one for each season. (If you are doing a specialty restaurant, you will need to do two meal periods such as lunch and dinner or a lounge and dinner meal period if you are doing a dinner only specialty restaurant). For example, if you are doing golf, you might charge $150 greens fees in the high seasons and $75 green fees in the low season. The next step is to determine how many weeks (not months) in each seasons. For example 20 weeks high season and 32 weeks low season. Then you need to assume how many players will play per day and week. For example you might get 125 rounds per day in high season but only 50 rounds in low season. Always calculate revenues for the week, weekly customers X rate = weekly revenue. Then you multiply by 4 weeks to get your revenues for the four week accounting period. We will not be using monthly P&L's but 28 day accounting period P&L's. Now you should probably have questions for me.

This should give you some more detail to start your final project. I look forward to hearing from you by Friday July 12 so that we can get you started on your final project. Click on the links in the destination project section to get some information on spas, golf operations, or specailty restaurants.

I look forward to hearing from you and working with you to complete these last assignments and have a successful class.

Wednesday June 19

I want to pass on a couple of items that some of the students in the class have emailed to me. The first is regarding exhibits. Exhibits are pictures, charts, graphs or other pictoral information. Exhibits support the narrative and is just another way to present useful information. You can cut and paste pictures or charts from web sites, you can scan, or you can develop your own chart or graph. Exhibits can be at the end of your paper or they can be put into the text, either way works. Also color is nice especially since we have such great resort web sites to use.

Information on destinations is found in Module 1 Online Reading 3 - Resort Destinations. You will want to re read this section as you work on your destination project. Remember a key part of the assignment is to compare to another competitive destination. For example if your destination is Jamaica, you might compare it to Hawaii or Mecixo beach resorts and hightlight the competitive advantages of your destination. Don't compare a beach destination to a desert or ski destination. That is more of a secondary competition rather than primary competition.

Just a reminder that the due dates for Module 2 summary and the Destination Project is this Friday, June 21.

Some of you are moving ahead to Module 3 Marketing. For that module, the module summary asks you to put together a marketing plan for a resort for a particular time period. Review Topic 1, Online reading 2 - Resort Marketing Responsibilities. The last part of this reading gives you an example of a marketing plan during the summer at Marriott's Mt Shadows Resort. It will help you in this assignment.

I will be grading your papers next week and will hopefully have them back to you by the end of the week.

Friday June 7

This update will include the requirements for the Destination Project. Note a new due date which is Friday June 21 the same date as the Module 2 summary is due. This will give you more time for the destination project. You might get the Module 2 summary done and then spend the additonal time on the destination project. Remember there is up to a three point bonus for submitting your assignments on time. This is to encourage you to maintain progress during the semester.

I have graded all the papers received as of Friday June 7. You should have received an email response with your grade and comments. If you haven't let me know. Some comments on what I am looking for that will help are 1. include an introduction, content and a summary. 2. Include your opinions and reactions to the material and assignment. I want to know what you think in addition to description. The descriptions are good, the opinions are more important. 3. Make sure that your name is on your paper in addtion to the email that you have sent.

I will be out of the office from June 9 thru June 17. Remember the due date for the destination project has been moved back to June 21. You can always submit your work early.

DESTINATION PROJECT - 50 points due June 21

Write a 4-6 page written report double spaced on a resort destination of your choice. Include at least one exhibit that supports the information in your report. Refer to the online material for definitions of a resort destination. The purpose of this report is to develop an undrstanding of destinations and their importance in resort operations. You should obtain detailed information about your destination and how that destination competes in the global market for resort business and pleasure travelers.

Your report should include the following: 1. description of your destination, 2. competitive advantages of your destination, 3. main destination competition, independent and chain resorts, 4. major resorts located in your destination, 5. exhibits featuring competitive advantages or demonstrating your destination, 6. introduction, content, summary and exhibits.

Remember the definition of a resort destination. Pick a destination(location) that you are interested in and be sure to identify and discuss a major competitor. For example Palm Springs and Phoenix are competitiors in the southwest desert destination markets, Florida, California and the Carolinas are competitiors in the sun and the beach destination markets. An important part of your report will be discussing the competitive advantages and disadvantages for your destination and then present why yours is better. This report is worth 50 points so I will be looking for more detail, comparisons, exhibits and complete report.

Good luck. I will be available for comments to discuss this project if you have questions when I return on June 18. I hope you enjoy this assignment. If you get into it and do it right, it is probably the most important part of the resort class to understand.

Wednesday June5

I have received the Reservation Research Project and the Module 1 summary for most of you. Those students that have sent these projects in on time will be receiving a 5 point bonus for each assignment. This is to encourage you to stay on schedule so that you and I don't get hammered the last week of July turning in six assignments (80 for me). Also you will have a better learning experience.

You should be into Module 2 now which has a lot of reading but is good background information that you need to know to understand resorts. The next project is the Destination Project which I will have posted by Friday on the NEWS link. Also you should have received your grade and comments via return email from me. I have completed the Reservation Research Projects and will have the Module 1 completed this week. Let me know if you don't have your grade. Good luck and I hope you enjoy the module 2 readings.

JAH

Friday May 24

A couple of points regarding the Reservation Research Project. It is due Friday May 24. However on the assignment page it indicates that the project is due the third week. Follow the due dates in the syllabus as they are the correct dates for the summer 2002 class. There has also been a problem with the dana server and you might have problems sending your assignment. Therefore, I will extend the due date to next Wednesday May 29. That should give enough time to fix the dana problem.

I also want to remphasize that a part of your grade involves submitting your projects and assignments on time. This is for your benefit. I will always accept the assignments, but if they are late you will not receive the bonus points for that project or assignment. One of the problems with web classes is that students get behind and it is difficult to catch up. That is why I encourage you to stay current with the work. And remember, there are no Incompletes for the class.

I have read several assignments already and look forward to receiving the rest of them. I hope you are enjoying the class so far.

E-mail Jon Hales at Jon.Hales@nau.edu
or call (520) 523-1621

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