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Sponsor Message
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The Cliffs Communities: "Living on the edge...of everything". Amid nature's beauty, it's easy to forget the city's hustle and bustle.  www.cliffscommunities.com  where you  can let  Nature take its course. Gliding down a mountain river, traffic and  congestion are the furthest things from your mind. Deadlines and hassles will simply be left behind. See  www.cliffscommunities.com  now.
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SCHEDULE UPDATE
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Thursday (the 29th) is the next edition of the "E-Mailed Positions Available for the Hospitality Industry" as submitted by Employers and Recruiters, affiliated with the industry. Wednesday (9PM-EST) is the submittal deadline. Those not having yet participated are encouraged to contact the author (see below). Also, the Newsletter Edition for next week will be delivered on Wednesday (July 5th), as we are taking a few days off too.

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WE'RE ALL "CONNECTED"
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It doesn't matter if you're a chef in an exclusive restaurant, the front desk manager at one of the finest hotels or sales person for a convention and visitors bureau -- we're all connected at the hip to the travel industry in some manner. Do you know the efforts  of Mr. Joel M. Abels ? Joel is the person behind the scenes of Travel Trade News and the online resources of TravelTrade.com -- it's an abundant amount of information provided. I've never personally met Joel but I've come to respect and admire the stance he's taken for the travel agent industry - whether I agree or disagree -- it's an incredible learning experience. You can pick of some valuable tips and enhance your own skills by seeing what it is that Travel Trade has to offer - it may sound like an advertisement - but that's not why it's mentioned -- it is however a valuable tool you should at least know about. Please visit  www.traveltrade.com  if you get one of those rare spare moments. The print edition is "packed" every single issue.

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WEB SITE REVIEW
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The feedback tells us that this is one of your favorite categories when in the newsletter from time to time. Well not to disappoint, have you seen the Denver Metro Convention & Visitors Bureau site? www.denver.org  brings you to a fairly quick home page and some excellent pointers for navigating the site. Interior pages do load much quicker (they actually jump on your screen) and  contact pages are factual, instead of including info@ as a general mailbox catch-all. The media area is one of the cleanest found (and we see plenty of them). Once at the visitors page, you're presented with simple options and nothing intruding on your "visit". This site is worth "copying" by all the other "snail & tortoise" CVB sites. You have 8-12 seconds to make a good first impression with a web site, most miss the boat completely, saddled in their ways by webmasters who think all the bells and whistles mean anything. Visitors want information and fast -- otherwise they would mail you a letter and we all know how long that can take.

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RFP'S
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Has anyone checked their RFP files lately? Many of the hotel sites are involved in  automatic "request for proposals" by third-party vendors (and some with their own systems). Got news for you - they aren't working. Last week we sampled a dozen different sites, made requests through all the templates and such, spent about six hours working with various sites -- have only two responses  (this since last Wednesday). The two responses -- automatic generated "we have received your request for proposal information". Is anyone minding the store??? Not a single "personal" response = 0 for 12... Nadda. Time for everyone to take a hard look at this "automation". It is a frustrating process to say the least. Another {head-shaker} for sure.

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VIRUS UPDATE
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Wow! A couple of days have passed and not one virus being reported in the news. No time to let your guard down. The easiest and least intrusive antivirus software we've found is called InoculateIT. It simply doesn't inhibit your computers performance like McAfee does in the opinion of the editor. The updates are easily downloaded if needed, from within the program, and usually take 2-3 minutes. The software is free, updates are free --- no excuses to not get in on this offer. www.hospitality-1st.com/antivirus.html  will bring you to a page for complete information and downloading. As always -- if you happen to be on a network -- check with your network administrator first before downloading anything.

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LATE FOR A DATE?
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Help your clients, prospects, and yourself on occasion. If you are traveling by air or know someone that is -- you might want to keep this link handy  www.flightarrivals.com  for the status of flights in the US and Canada. You've got to "work" a bit in their system but you can even find the status of UPS flights to/from any destination. This online service even tells you  remaining flight time and mileage out from a given destination. Probably could save some of you in the larger cities plenty of commute time and having to keep a bunch of 800#'s around. I've seen some concierges lately that have laptops at their disposal -- a site like this just might score some customer service points for your frayed guests.

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RESTAURANT RESOURCES
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If you have an opportunity to expand those rare  "spare moments" I mentioned earlier --- please see  www.restaurantdoctor.com  which is Bill Marvin "The Restaurant Doctor". His Electronic House Call newsletter is very informative and the site is worth spending some time with. Bill also offers one of the least intrusive sites on/for your visit and we commend him for that.
 

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LASTLY
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Please turn off those darn (being very pleasant with choice of the word) beepers, cell phones and pagers at the next meeting or seminar you're attending when a speaker is doing a presentation! You are no more important than anyone else in the room. Enough said...

Lou Taverna - Editor
LTaverna@Hospitality-1st.com
Hospitality 1ST = "Where Hospitality Is Always First" sm
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Employment Available Online
www.hospitality-1st.com/Employers/EmpIndexDateT.html
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Small Business Hospitality Association (SBHA)
www.hospitality-1st.com/SBHAssoc.html
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Press/News Releases Online
www.hospitality-1st.com/PressNews/PressIndexDate.html
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Car Rental Discount Programs by  Alamo,  AVIS, National & Thrifty
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Phone:   (941) 541-2459 FL  or  (336) 760-3143 NC
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