So Much To Learn

Standardization, standardization, standardization. Thats the one message that stuck with me from Mark's lecture this morning. That's not to say that the other aspects he hit on didn't stay with me, but standardization is something I will apply to my CHESS simulation. Originally, I was going to have different rates for different times of the week, but Mark and Reneta explained that we need to shoot for standardization because a person that comes in a Sunday can't have a higher or lower quality amenities on Monday just because I wanted, for example, to give my leisure customers higher quality amenities on the weekend when leisurely customers are more likely to arrive. What if a leisure customer stayed until Monday? Does that mean he or she gets lower quality amenities? That is why there needs to be standardization. The amount I spend on guest room supplies is totally dependent on the number of rooms I sell. That is, I can set my rate for the supplies leisure customers get for the whole week and I'll have consistent service yet only really pay on weekends when more leisure customers are likely to come and stay at my hotel. I found this really interesting.


In the afternoon, Mark led Group A for a workshop on Microsoft Word. I had no clue I could do so much with Word. Mark walked us through setting up a business memo template and showed us the ins and outs of Word such as setting up our own style and making custom tabs. He taught us so much and surprised us by saying "By the way, be ready for you quiz tomorrow". Time to play around with Word and try to get familiar.


After the information session, we were assigned what hotel company we would be doing research on for our group presentation. My group will be presenting on Host Hotel and Resorts, Inc. While we didn't get the requirements for our presentation, I cannot wait to jump in and begin researching with my group, but first, I need to practice using Microsoft Word because I refuse to let Word use me, I will use Word!