Hospitality Critique Assignment
Initially review the issues currently occurring in the hospitality industry, such as economic challenges, market competition, staffing needs, and the like. Then select an issue of your choice and search the CSU Online Library for two articles pertaining to hospitality management. The articles should be less than three years old and should exceed three (3) pages in length. Analyze and evaluate the articles as to their relevance in today's marketplace and organize your Article Critique as follows:
Part 1 of the critique consists of the identification of the articles. Be certain that you provide readers with enough information about the articles so they will be able to locate the articles.
Part 2 presents an abstract of each article in which you briefly summarize the main points the author established.
Part 3 offers your actual critique of the articles. You are to provide your reaction (insightful, critical, and logical) to the points the authors made. A simple statement of agreement or disagreement is not sufficient. While you may make such a statement by way of an introduction to your reaction, you must clearly and logically state the reasons for the position you have taken toward the data presented within the articles.
Required length of your paper: minimum of 1,000 words. Use APA formatting and documentation.
Hospitality critique assignment
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Abstract
In the first article, Michaela Platzer shows the significance of tourism industry for U.S economy. He indicated congress’ role on developing tourism sector. However, policymakers have not been coming up with a common agreement on the convenient federal role for promoting tourism and travel. For example, Congress during 1996 stopped providing funds to USTTA (United States tourism and tourism administration). It was in 2009 when the congress enacted TPA act to promote U.S tourism. Michaela Platzer acknowledges that even though U.S still remains one of the best destinations of choice internationally, there is a lot to address for it to remain competitive. He talks about issues hindering foreign visitors to come to U.S, which should be addressed. He also talks about worker turnover as another concern that should be solved. Michaela Platzer emphasizes on sustainable programs that should put into place to develop and promote U.S tourism resource for it to remain the best.
In the second article, Nejdet Delener presents some of the vital trends in the U.S travel industry. He claims that United States is endowed with rich tourism resources and development that continue to attract millions of visitors at international level. He gives a critical look that while the number of international visitors remains high, domestic visit is relatively low. He explains the reasons why domestic visit is quite low. He justifies that domestic visit is down because Americans are always committed people who always have a lot to do, but have less free time for leisure. This is a current trend, but is part of culture of American people. Americans are innovators, and therefore they create ideas and products for others. Besides that, Nejdet Delener also talks about issues that negatively affect tourism and travel industry. In some cases, visitors experience dissatisfaction and frustrations, and as a result, U.S losses many billions of dollars. He encourages U.S companies to address such concerns and fears.
Article 1
In United States, tourism and travel industry contributed 2.9 percent of GDP (gross domestic product) during 2011 and provided direct employment to at least 5.7 million people during 2013. It is therefore a mature sector that needs to be developed and well sustained (Platzer, 2014). Even though actual output and employment in the sector have risen in the recent years, they have not completely recovered from impact of the 2007-2009 recession. The tourism and travel industry lost 800,000 jobs during 2007 to 2009 recession. It is based on this situation that the congress will put consideration whether or not to lengthen TPA (the Travel Promotion Act) of 2009 that created a countywide marketing and advertising programs to promote foreign visitors to come to United States. The bill is set to expire by the end of 2015. Other laws also are planned to be enacted to ensure that travelling to U.S is less complicated and much ensure for international visitors. These await decisions in the congress.
The sector is based on labor- intensive services since it relies on offering high quality customers services. Wages incurred in tourism and travel sector is therefore high and expensive particularly for retail and hotel services where labor cost is expensive higher than 25 percent of revenues. This has compelled tourism industry to hire employees with lesser skills than other sectors (Platzer, 2014). In most cases, relatively young workers are hired on part-time or seasonal basis. Moreover, employee turnover is quite high because workers feel that they are poorly paid. Nevertheless, not every segment within the sector pays low wages, though segments, which pay more, tend to hire fewer tourist employees than larger segments like traveler accommodations, retail trade and food services (Zrinka and Sinisa, 2012). Employee turnover in tourism sector is an issue of concern that requires attention. Tourism and travel industry is a huge employer which needs to come out with ways to address issues affecting workers.
United States is ranked the second most famous destination for international visitors. France is the most famous destination for international visitors. United States is among the top six most competitive nations in tourism and travel (Platzer, 2014). Nevertheless, its share of international market for global tourism may continue decreasing as visitors may opt to reach other destinations. This is another way of claiming that in order for United States to remain competitive, it must continue developing its programs for tourism and travel services. It is predicted that china will outdo United States by becoming the largest tourist market in the world by 2023.
Article 2
According to Delener (2011), tourism and travel is one of the hugest industries in United States that serve mill...