Our Sponsor:
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THE BUSINESS CARD
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The number one universally accepted advertising medium (besides word of mouth) and one of the least expensive is likely the business card. For the GMs and CEOs something you should be aware of -- your front line employees are hesitant to provide your business card or that of the business establishment to an inquiring customer/guest. Here's a quick scenario and kindly excuse the "I" word but it is a first person account. My personal habit is to always ask for a business card at any business considered a potential client or contact. Maybe I'd want to thank an employee for great service, maybe I'd want to let management know of some poor food/drink combinations but "I" the customer have a reason. What's the most common response? "Why sir is something WRONG?" Sure the employee may be genuinely concerned and wanting to help but it has taken some 5-10 minutes to gather up a business card after simply mentioning the fact of wanting one. Before you write to me - I understand you may have instructed the employee to react this way but do you really want other guests hearing the word wrong or problem. I'm not sure when asking for a business card began to cause so much fear.

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REPEATING OURSELVES - WORTH MENTIONING AGAIN
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In case you may have noticed, most recent updates to Internet browsers now allow for some simplification of web site addresses; you no longer need to include the {.www} in the URL. The problem; many a Hospitality Industry site do not conform to this simplification because their web hosting company and/or web server have not been configured properly to allow this to happen. Without being too technical - it involves a tiny change with DNS numbers that are used "in the background" to load any specific web site. If your {.www} is not configured to allow the short version, visitors may be presented with an error page or be confronted with a user name / password dialog box that has little meaning and can act as a deterrent to your visitors and clientele. It's not unlike the tortoise loading web sites that we so often chastise - if you're going to have a web presence --- do it right and give the customer what they expect.

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QUICK HIGHLIGHTS - PER DIEMS
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U.S. Government Per Diem Rates (Domestic):
policyworks.gov/org/main/mt/homepage/mtt/perdiem/perd01d.html

U.S. Government Per Diem Rates (Foreign):
www.state.gov/www/perdiems/2000/0012bperdiems.html

From Government Executive (and other useful travel tools):
www.govexec.com/travel

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MEET KATHY A. BANNAN
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We, along with AVIS Car Rental, are pleased to present Kathy A. Bannan of Tiger Vision Hospitality Training through our "Hospitality Industry Member Spotlite©". Kathy is the newest member of our monthly feature, and we hope many of you will visit her profile and find out more about her industry accomplishments. In case you may have missed the link in a previous issue; hospitality-1st.com/spotlite/spotlite.html is where you locate the information and have the opportunity to nominate deserving Hospitality Industry individuals. Nominations for the next rotation must be submitted by January 24, 2001 -- the Spotlite rotates on January 30th.

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E-MAIL SUGGESTION
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Be careful with your online marketing efforts when your e-mail address has an "i", l(el) or 1(one) included in it. Sometimes your target can be confused and easily type any of these characters wrong. Many e-mail programs use a character set which can make an l(el) and 1(one) seem interchangeable but they are not. As a solution, if you get an address that might be a problem -- you can always cut/paste the character into a word processor and it will be easier to identify.

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E-MAIL SUGGESTION #2
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As you strengthen your Sales, Marketing and PR  messages, many times you'll get the "urge" to send an attachment with that e-mail. Stifle that urge for a moment! The accepted  practice is to first "ASK" your intended recipient if they mind. Why? Most likely your file attachment will  "spawn" a virus protection  program to  come to life (which is good) on your recipient's computer, you are now using up their system resources and this could be a very unwelcome intrusion (which is bad). Also, some e-mail programs will not accept attachments greater than 50K-100K in size depending on the end user preferences. Please be considerate. This consideration just may -- "get you through the door" in the future.
 

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BRIDGE A LANGUAGE BARRIER
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Consider the times you have traveled and/or possibly served guests or clients with a foreign language barrier in place. To help you bridge the gap, try a few words or expressions and sentences at this language translation site  www.tranexp.com:2000/InterTran?  You'll never know when you have to run in the back office and fire up the computer to help you communicate! It just may come in very handy.

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LASTLY
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We now have an Employer/Recruiter database numbering in excess of 900 hospitality industry members. Beginning with the February 2001 issues of our "E-Mailed Hospitality Industry Positions Available" the service will become "closed" to additional (no-cost) Employer/Recruiter parti- cipation. This change has no bearing on the subscribers or to those of you having participated with the listing service anytime since Feb'99. If you are an Employer/Recruiter wishing to participate with our  free listing service you must do so prior to February 2001, or a "one-time" fee of $25.00 will be required for your inclusion. Again; let me spell it out most clearly; Change Has No Effect On Newsletter Subscribers or Employers/Recruiters currently participating. This is a "housekeeping" matter to make sure the listings remain manageable and that they don't burden your inbox due to an excessively large file needing to be sent. Our intent is to keep the file under 35K (most e-mail defaults limit a file to 50K or less before it becomes restricted by an e-mail server). Next issue = this Thursday (January 25th) being e-mailed to more than 6,850 subscribers -- we do appreciate the numerous referrals and time so many of you have taken with feedback  -pro or con-  regarding this rather extensive service and subscriber benefit.

Building "The Bridge of Hospitality" sm
Lou Taverna - Editor
Hospitality 1ST = "Where Hospitality Is Always First" sm
Web Site =  www.hospitality-1st.com
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Web Site Stats:
5,760+ Page Views/day = 175,000+/month
Newsletter Impressions = 26,000+/month
Newsletter Subscribers =  6,850/01-22-01
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Hospitality Industry: Member Spotlite ®
www.hospitality-1st.com/spotlite/spotlite.html
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Dedicated Hospitality Industry Press/News Releases
www.hospitality-1st.com/PressNews/PressIndexDate.html
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Who's Who ? In The Industry - Free Postings
www.hospitality-1st.com/WhoIsWho.html
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Hospitality Industry Employment Available
www.hospitality-1st.com/Employers/EmpIndexDateT.html
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The Small Business Hospitality Association (SBHA)
www.hospitality-1st.com/SBHAssoc.html
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Car Rental Discount Programs by  Alamo,  AVIS, National & Thrifty
www.hospitality-1st.com
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Copyrighted 1999, 2000
Phone:   (941) 541-2459 FL
Fax:     ||||(815) 327-0918 Dedicated Travel Line
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