Going into class today, I had one thought: Get that CHESS business memo turned in. Before I could get to the computer lab to turn in my memo, however, we had a guest speaker, Stefani Robson, who is an environment physiologist. She spoke about design and how our five senses lead us as customers to make purchases. The presentation was very interesting. We looked at how hotels such as ACE Hotels can be profitable by spending money on designing and an enhancing an existing building as opposed to building from scratch. ACE does implements sense of place into their designs. This means that ACE takes advantage of the location of it's property as the characteristics of the location are found in the design. For example, the ACE hotel in Brooklyn has a wallpaper that is covered in sights that one would see around Brooklyn.
In addition to learning about hotel design, we learned several neat facts such as for men, hearing is the first sense to go and often times, the first frequency of sound that men cannot recognize is the sound of a woman's voice. When Ms. Robson said this, Mark promptly said "What?". Another interesting fact we learned was that in a study on music in a wine shop, people are more likely to purchase wine when there is classical music in the background as opposed to the Top 40 songs. Moreover, when Italian opera was played, people purchased Italian wine, when German opera was played, people bought German wines, and when French opera was played, "people bought wines that they cannot pronounce the names of". Today's guest lecture was incredibly interesting.
After the lecture, Frank and I promptly went to the computer labs where we proofread each other's memo, and then submitted our memos at the same time. It was an incredible feeling to get to walk to lunch knowing I just turned in my first major assignment and I had put my new Word skills to use! It was also a great feeling to know that I took the time to pour over data from my CHESS hotel trial to find our how I should spend my money to make the most profit.
When we returned from lunch, my group got right back into the swing of things and started to work on our PowerPoint presentation. Host Hotels and Resorts is and interesting company. It isn't a major hotel brand or company. It is an REIT that purchases land a properties which it then has managed by upper upperscale and luxury hotels such as Four Seasons and Ritz Carlton. Host used to be a part of Marriott Corporation and as a result the vast majority of Host's properties are under the Marriott brand name. Also, unlike other hotel brands that other groups will present about, Host doesn't have any brands. It would be more correct to say that there are brands on Host's properties. Host doesn't operate any of its properties so it doesn't have any other brands like Comfort Stay by Host.
I find this company to be extremely fun to learn about and I can't wait to work more with my group tomorrow so we can put everything together.
On the way back from class, Frank and I took a shortcut through the science building where we saw a lady standing looking pretty sad as she stared at the vending machine, When Frank and I looked at the vending machine, we saw that the lady's snack was stuck - right above where she could grab it. Frank and I tried to help by sticking paper, our folders, and hands through the flap on the bottom to grab it to no avail. Just when the lady gave up and walked away, Frank and I thought, if we buy something that is heavy enough that is above the stuck bag of chips, then would our snack falling down get the bag of chips unstuck? We tried and sure enough, our small bag of Cheez-its came down with the bag of chips. We then spent the next ten minutes or so walking around looking and asking if anyone had seen the lady we tried to help. After awhile we found her, gave her the bag of chips, and walked away feeling pretty good about ourselves. The $1.00 we spent on a small bag of Cheez-its was well worth it.
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