Etourism – “Global Distribution Systems †Going, Going, Gone”

Global Distribution Systems – Going, Going, Gone? | Table of Contents Introduction:2 Timeline3 Airline Reservation System3 Computer Reservation Systems (CRS)3 Global Distribution Systems (GDS)4 Who uses GDSs? 5 GDS – Through the years:5 The Future of GDS:6 What should they do? 6 What is the role of the global distribution system in today’s travel agencies? 6 The Internet7 Conclusion8 References9 Books:9 Articles:9 Websites:9 Introduction: GDS – Going, going, gone? Well, certainly Global Distribution Systems have been going for a while but are they yet gone?This paper is on the history, present time and the questionable future of Global Distribution System (GDS). Firstly I go through each stage of their timeline: – Airline Reservation Systems began in the 1960s and is a computerized system is designed to control flight inventory, maintain flight schedules, seat assignments and aircraft loading. It’s used to store and retrieve information and c arry out transactions associated to any air travel. The modern airline reservation system is comprehensive suite of products to provide a system that assists with a variety of airline management tasks and ervice customer needs from the time of initial reservation through completion of the flight. – Computer Reservations Systems (CRS) began in the 1970s. These types of systems charge other travel suppliers for the right to market their products and services through these systems. ‘The computer reservation systems are completely keyboard driven and you must learn the formats in order to operate it efficiently. The web based booking engines are the point and click environment. ’ Travel Agent Training Centre, (2011). Global Distribution Systems (GDS) began in the 1980s and refer to the booking tool travel agents use when making an air, hotel, car or other travel service booking. They provide pricing, availability and reservation functionality to many online travel ag encies. There are currently four major GDS systems: 1. Amadeus 2. Galileo 3. Sabre 4. Worldspan Hotel-ICT, (2011) – The Internet has become the main sales channel and customer interface for low-cost airlines because of its efficiency and cost-effectiveness. Timeline The timeline stages of CRS/GDS according to Werthner & Klein (1999), is as follows: ———————————————— Time1965197519851995 SystemAirline ReservationCRSGDS Global Travel & FocusSystem Tourism Information Airline Reservation System Airline Reservation System was one of the earliest modifications to improve on efficiency. It’s a moderately simple standalone system that controls flight inventory, maintains flight schedules, seat assignments and aircraft loading. ‘It provides a system that assists with a variety of airline management tasks and service customer needs from the time of initia l reservation through completion of the flight. Videcom, (2006). ARS contain airline schedules, fare tariffs, passenger reservations and ticket records. Airline Reservations Systems sooner or later evolved into Computer Reservation Systems (CRS). Computer Reservation Systems (CRS) ‘A Computer Reservation System (CRS) is a computerized system for saving and retrieving information when needed related to air travel. CRS were created and used by airlines and at a later point they were finally used in tourism intermediaries like travel agencies. ’ marcelvacek. logspot (2010)   An airline's direct distribution works within their own reservation system, as well as pushing out information to the GDS. The second type of direct distribution channels are consumers who use the internet or mobile applications to make their own reservations. Travel agencies and other indirect distribution channels access the same GDS as those accessed by the airlines' reservation systems Well known CRS operations that book and sell tickets for multiple airlines are known as global distribution systems (GDS).Airlines have separated most of their direct holdings to devoted GDS companies, who make their systems available to consumers through Internet gateways. Modern GDSs naturally allow consumers to book hotel rooms and rental cars as well as airline tickets. As well they provide access to railway reservations in some markets although these are not always integrated with the main system. CRS and GDS seem to have the same functions but the major difference between these two systems is that CRS only provide information about airlines whereas by using GDS you can reserve a ticket, a room in a hotel and also a rental car.This is why they are called Global Distribution Systems because you can use GDS to reserve basically everything. Global Distribution Systems (GDS) ‘The term GDS (Global Distribution System) describes a network of one or more CRS for distributing product offer s and functionalities of the participating networks in different countries of the world. In addition to the airline product also other products such as accommodation, car rentals, cruises, or tour operator products are included. Werthner & Klein (1999) Today the travel marketplace is a global arena with hundreds of thousands of buyers (travel agents) and sellers (hotels, resorts, airlines, car rental companies) working together to reserve and deliver the services to the buyer – the traveller. Increasingly Global Distribution System is known for a Global Electronic System, which connects users and suppliers. GDS offer instant access to the supplier's information (i. e. hotels) with immediate function. Many main web portals are also associated to  GDS, including Expedia. com, Orbitz. om, Travelocity. com and priceline. com to name a few. For many years the GDSs had a dominant position in the travel industry. To bypass the GDS and avoid high GDS fees, airlines have started to distribute flights directly from their websites. Another possibility to bypass the GDS is direct connections to the Travel Agencies. According to ITSA there are currently four main GDS companies in operation, these are Amadeus, Galileo, Sabre and Worldspan. These are by far the most used systems, comprising the vast majority of the global bookings in the GDS industry. The Global Distribution Systems (GDSs), a development from the Computer Reservation Systems (CRSs), were for a long time the most important distribution channel for airlines. They were effectively developed as travel supermarkets in the pre-Internet era and their primary objective was to connect travel agencies with airlines (Buhalis, 2004). GDSs are still a vital element in the light of the huge variety of tariffs to be administered. GDSs are the main link between airlines and intermediaries, such as tour operators and travel agents.They are also empowering Internet transactions by providing the background link be tween electronic travel agencies and airlines. ’ (Egger ;amp; Buhalis, 2008) There is one downside of using GDS and it is the fact that it costs airlines money to go through a GDS process. Airlines complain that the prices are too high and therefore some poorer airlines have decided to post their best offers by using their own websites instead of the global distribution system so that they do not go bankrupt. CRSs (Computer Reservation Systems) and GDSs were the most important facilities of change in the tourism industry before the arrival of the Internet, as they were established as a comprehensive travel marketing and distribution system and were often called travel supermarkets. The need for GDSs arises from both the demand and supply sides as well as from the expansion of the tourism industry in recent decades. ’ (Buhalis,2003. ) Who uses GDSs? A majority of travel agents (worldwide) and travel websites use the Global Distribution System (GDS) to book their air, ho tel and car reservations. There are currently over 600,000 travel agents worldwide who have access to  GDS. On top of that, there are hundreds of thousands of web portals that use  GDS  to provide information on hotels, airlines, car rentals,  etc. ’ According to 1Hotelsolution, (2009). GDS – Through the years: There have been 3 stages of evolution the first reservation system was called an Airline Reservation system, the second a Computer Reservation System (CRS) and the third evolution is today’s Global Distribution System (GDS). The establishment of the Computer Reservation Systems (CRSs) in the 1970s and Global Distribution Systems (GDSs) in the 1980s, followed by the development of the Internet in the late 1990s, have transformed the best operational and strategic practices in the industry dramatically. ’ Buhalis ;amp; Laws (2008) The big winners here are the airlines, followed by the GDSs. The carriers' major concern was to overhaul their di stribution economics and they did that – reducing the fees they pay the GDSs by about 33 per cent per segment.And the airlines, with assistance from the GDSs, did it on the backs of travel agencies. Travel agencies bear about 80 per cent of that reduced airline payment to GDSs through the incentive cuts the agencies agreed to, while the GDSs foot about 20 per cent of the lost revenue themselves. With travel agencies already under financial pressure, the 80-cents incentive cut they agreed to could mean the difference between profit and loss, survival and bankruptcy, according to the article Airlines the big winners in ‘the GDS wars’ Schaal (2006). For the amount of contestable market share is limited given high load factors. Worse this is not going to get any better due to the constraints on supply due to the high price of fuel. If  we look at the market share of the 3 major alliances they now occupy more than 50% of total traffic. When you then remove the Low C ost carriers out of the loop as they don’t participate in the GDSs the amount of neutral traffic unaligned falls significantly. Perhaps for this reason we see traditional unaligned airlines like Virgin Atlantic starting to evaluate their options seriously.   4Hoteliers, (2011). The Future of GDS: Over the last 10 years, the Internet has proved to be a crucially successful platform for selling travel, appealing to a vast group of suppliers. According to Breaking Travel News (2004), the number of travellers booking airline tickets, hotel rooms and other travel services online continues to grow. The GDSs were actually among the first e-commerce companies in the world as early as mid 1970s. Earlier before the beginning of the GDS, travel agents spent huge amounts of time manually entering reservations.The airlines realised that at this point they could make travel agents more productive and essentially re-invent them as an extension of the airlines sales force. It is these orig inal legacy GDSs that provide the strength to the Internet Travel distribution. While online commerce was growing at a fast pace, agents are more and more facing a new reality whereby customers are finding the cheapest fares for themselves on the Internet. The airlines can no longer afford to put fare content through GDSs and are complaining that the prices are too high.The low-cost airlines have added to this pressure, having found an alternative form of distribution that bypasses the GDSs, as stated by Breaking News Travel, (2004). In an attempt to cut their own costs, traditional airlines have started to make their best fares available on their own websites alone. Although GDSs are still a very useful distribution tool, at this stage it is crucial that they reduce their distribution costs in order to restore profitability and ensure the airlines survival (none of the GDSs are now owned by airlines). This is no doubt leading to the volume of the GDS transactions diminishing.What s hould they do? Moving into a de-regulatory environment will change the rules for GDSs, meaning a shift in focus creating new opportunities. They really need to concentrate on value, content and pricing as priorities in moving ahead. They should also re-evaluate their costs and agent incentives. British Airways (BA) has recently negotiated a deal with Amadeus, Sabre and Galileo, which gives them full access to BA’s fares as indicated by Breaking Travel News, (2004). What is the role of the global distribution system in today’s travel agencies?With the dramatic expansion of the Internet and the proliferation of new sources offering bookable travel content, GDSs are still the primary, most comprehensive and reliable platform for travel agencies and their corporate clients to access, shop and book travel. It is also through GDSs and their rich portfolios of travel planning and management tools those agencies and corporations reconcile and manage daily travel business. Due to their range, extent and supplier relationships, GDSs are also fundamental to the supply of travel products to retailers in the online channel according to Travelport, (2011). The InternetThe Internet has become the main sales channel and customer interface for low-cost airlines because of its efficiency and cost-effectiveness. The most recent stage of distribution system increase happened in the mid-1990s and counterparts the fast growth of the Internet and its widespread penetration into households by the end of the decade. The internet gave rise to alternative booking channels. ‘ Instead of going to the travel agent to pick up brochures, customers will request details of holidays over the Internet and watch video pictures of the accommodation before booking with the swipe of a credit card. Morgan, (1996). ‘Airlines have a number of options for Internet distribution including airline-owned websites, alliance sites, electronic intermediaries and other forms of sales i ncluding electronic auctioning of unsold seats. A major advantage of these types of services is the ability to offer 24-hour, 7-days-a-week service that in the near future will include bookings via cellular phones using Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) technology. ’ Buhalis & Laws, (2001). By combining the simple protocol of the Internet with a user-friendly interface it represents the main â€Å"vehicle† for creating a worldwide electronic community, integrating research institutes, private companies, public organizations and, most important, private households. ’ Werthner & Klein, (1999). Conclusion The questions are if there is a concentration of power in the hands of the airlines and the intermediaries, is there really a need for a neutral distribution system? What if there was no GDS? If this were the case – would the prices of the products go down or stay the same?From the research in this paper I believe that GDS today is costing us more . As 4Hoteliers stated previously in the paper, the market share of the 3 major alliances they now occupy more than 50% of total traffic. When the Low Cost carriers are removed out of the loop they don’t take part in the GDSs the amount of neutral traffic not united falls considerably. I would agree that the GDS has over time restrained competition and indeed cost the consumer more. GDS – Going, going, gone? They did indeed lasted many, many years but yes I believe they are on their way out.A new generation of people are coming in with more knowledge about technology than the last. They have more of a grasp about computers and the workings of the Internet therefore they will not need GDS, thus, will not need to use travel agencies who are the main users of GDS to book their air, hotel and car reservations. Once travel agencies are out, Global Distribution Systems will no longer be needed. They are soon to be gone. References Books: * Buhalis, D (2003). eTourism. Harlow , England: Pearson Education Limited. P93-94. * Buhalis, D. & Laws, E. (2001).Tourism Distribution Channels-Practices, Issues & Transformations. Cornwall, UK: TJI Digital. P221 * Egger, R. & Buhalis, D. (2008). eTourism Case Studies. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann P264 * Morgan, M. (1996). Marketing for Leisure and Tourism. Hertforshire, UK: Prentice Hall. P263 * Werthner, H. & Klein, S. (1999). Information Technology and Tourism – A Challenging Relationship. Austria: Springer-Verlag Wien. P79 * Werthner, H. & Klein, S. (1999). Information Technology and Tourism – A Challenging Relationship. Austria: Springer-Verlag Wien.P185 * Werthner, H. & Klein, S. (1999). Information Technology and Tourism – A Challenging Relationship. Austria: Springer-Verlag Wien. P188 Articles: * Breaking Travel News (2004) The Future of the GDS. Available from http://www. breakingtravelnews. com/news/article/btn20040216144254916/ [accessed 8th Oct 2011] * Buhalis, D. & Laws, E. (2008) Progress in Tourism Management: Progress in information technology and tourism management: 20 years on and 10 years after the Internet—The state of eTourism research. Available from http://www. sciencedirect. om/science/article/pii/S0261517708000162 [accessed 7th Oct 2011] * Schaal, D. (2006) Airlines the big winners in ‘the GDS wars’ in International News. Available from http://0-web. ebscohost. com. ditlib. dit. ie/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer? vid=5&hid=8&sid=562024d9-8116-4049-8ab3-6bb0295294dd%40sessionmgr13 [Accessed 7th Oct 2011] Websites: * Hotel-ITC, (2011). GDS (Global Distribution System) – Connect to the world. Available from http://hotel-ict. blogspot. com/2011/04/gds-global-distribution-system-connect. html [Accessed 8th Oct 2011] (Image) * ITSA – GDSs and LTDs http://www. nteractivetravel. org/IndustryBackground/Attachments/GDSs_and_LTDs_FAQs. pdf [accessed 8th Oct] * Marcelvacek. blogspot, (2010). Touri sm & Hospitality Business Applications. Available from http://marcelvacek. blogspot. com/2010/10/what-is-crs-and-gds. html [accessed 7th Oct 2011] * Travel Agent Training Centre, (2011). Computer Reservation System Training Available from http://www. travelagenttrainingcenter. com/Computer%20Reservation%20System%20Training. htm [accessed 8 Oct] * Travelport, (2011). What do travel agents

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Consumer law in england and wales Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3250 words

Consumer law in england and wales - Article Example Accordingly, in this paper I shall adopt a focused approach and particularly consider the e-commerce driven consumer measures and their concomitant impact on consumer law in England and Wales. The rapid pace of online business activity has fuelled piecemeal responsive legislative measures in an attempt to balance the interests and protection of consumers whilst simultaneously facilitating market growth. It is submitted at the outset, that ad hoc responsive EU legislative measures have been insufficient to cover the multifarious consumer transactions covered by the "e-commerce" umbrella. Moreover, the underlying weakness in such measures has been the fact that effective online business is clearly dependent on effective consumer protection as opposed to being mutually exclusive. If we consider this contextually, within England and Wales the primary issue impacting consumer protection under the e-commerce paradigm has been effective consumer protection vis-'-vis optimum market facilitation. ... Additionally, in order to commercially exploit the new e-commerce business model, the key to growing a successful online business is to ensure compliance with legal requirements regarding the selling of goods and services to consumers, work with reliable internet service providers and programmers and utilise effective marketing tools to promote business (Alexiou, 2002). As such, the central consumer protection legal issues raised by this are as follows: 1) The use of online terms and conditions - Standard commercial agreements need to consider the protection against unfair commercial practices and unfair contract terms (Singleton, 2003). Moreover, consumer contracting on online terms and conditions raises jurisdiction and applicable law issues; and 2) Data protection compliance needs to be addressed both in respect of collecting information on online users, selling customer lists and monitoring e-mail and viral marketing. Businesses must be registered with the Information Commissioner for processing and implement an online privacy policy and marketing and detailed internal policies on employee monitoring (Smith, 2001). Furthermore, the e-commerce business model involves the provision of goods and services online in the course of business to consumers at a distance and as such, raises issues as to applicable law and enforceability, which is further compounded by borderless frontiers in enforcement (Smith, 2001). The global nature of transacting online has fuelled a number of international e-commerce initiatives (Lloyd 2004). However, the rhetoric of these proposed models focus solely on the regulatory aspect of e-commerce, which is arguably one element of wider issues raised by e-commerce from a

I don't have one, thats my problem Should be a topic that deals Research Paper

I don't have one, thats my problem Should be a topic that deals broadly with a problem with educational purposes within american society - Research Paper Example We begin with an overview of the controversies surrounding standardized testing in a modern context and evaluate these controversies with an eye to how educators can learn from the issues at hand. We explore the issue of race and standardized testing and discern whether or not standardized testing is the best means through which student evaluation is undertaken. From this perspective, the historical and sociopolitical issues surrounding standardized testing in America are brought to the fore. Controversy surrounding the implementation of standardized testing can be found throughout the United States. Does a uniform, standardized test accurately reflect a student’s educational aptitude, learning history and future academic performance? As mentioned above, standardized testing is quite common in the United States as the SAT remains a near universal experience for high school students across the country aiming to get into the universities and colleges of the choice. The issue of standardized testing is relatively recent worldwide and remains embroiled in controversy. Presently, Canadian universities do not require a standardized test for admittance although many graduate school programs do. These include the GMAT or LSAT for law school applications. Presently, Montreal’s McGill University is the only English-language law school in North America which does not require an LSAT score for admittance. As the issue of standardized testing came to the fore, a Septemb er 2005 poll by the College of Teachers found that 71% of teachers were â€Å"dead set against standardized testing†. In a survey from 2004, Teachers vehemently oppose the use of standardized tests as a means to evaluate staff or schools or to decide how money is allocated to schools or school boards. The public disagrees. For example, 79 per cent of teachers oppose using provincial tests to

Good Versus Evil Essay Example for Free

Good Versus Evil Essay Good versus Evil At first, it appears that the definitions of good and evil are straightforward. According to the New Oxford American Dictionary, good is defined as â€Å"that which is morally right; righteousness†; evil is defined as â€Å"profoundly immoral and malevolent. † For centuries there has been an argument among many philosophers on the belief of â€Å"good versus evil† and whether it really exists. Some argue that human beings are the perpetrators of evil. Others argue that the world is not a bad place and that evil and suffering is, in fact, necessary. Throughout the novel, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, there is a clear struggle involving good and evil. The reader is introduced to the protagonist and narrator, Victor Frankenstein, at the beginning of the novel. Victor, a family oriented man, becomes very interested in the modern science world and later on believes that he has discovered the â€Å"secret of life. † With this discovery he goes on to create a monster, who remains without a name throughout the whole novel. At first glance it appears that the monster did everything in his power to prevent Victor from having the happy life that he longed for. Mary Shelley purposely chose Victor Frankenstein to be the narrator of this story. Readers only get the story from his point of view. Frankenstein plays on the emotions of the readers, therefore anything he is feeling, readers feel the same way. He is seen as this helpless man who has been through so much in such a short life, and all because he was being terrorized by this heinous creature. â€Å"I entered the room where the corpse lay, and was led up to the coffin The trial, the presence of the magistrate and witnesses, passed like a dream from my memory, when I saw the lifeless form of Henry Clerval stretched before me. I gasped for breath; and, throwing myself on the body I exclaimed, ‘Have my murderous machinations deprived you also, my dearest Henry, of life? Two I have already destroyed; other victims await their destiny: but you, Clerval, my friend, my benefactor’† (122). However, readers do get a glimpse in to how the monster feels and the struggles that he comes across. â€Å" She continued her course along the precipitous sides of the river, when suddenly her foot slipped; and she fell into the rapid stream. I rushed from my hiding place, and, with extreme labour from the force of the current, saved her, and dragged her to shore I was suddenly interrupted by the approach of a rustic On seeing me, he darted towards me, and, tearing the girl from my arms, hastened towards the deeper parts of the wood he aimed a gun, which he carried, at my body, and fired. I sunk to the ground, and my injurer, with increased swiftness, escaped into the wood† (95). Mary Shelley’s anecdote of a struggle between good versus evil makes the reader constantly redefine who is truly the good one, and who is evil. At the end of the novel, the reader discovers that it is really Victor Frankenstein that is the evil one. He manipulated the readers thoughts and feelings by leading them to believe that he was the good one, that he was being tormented by this evil beast. In reality, this is how the story really goes: Frankenstein was the creator of this â€Å"beast. † Frankenstein abandoned the beast and treated it as if it were too wretched to be loved. Frankenstein, knowing how the beast felt and what he was capable of, continued to ignore the monster’s requests for a companion. Frankenstein knew that the beast would take away all of his loved ones until he got what he wanted. Victor manipulated this monster in to doing his dirty work for him. Mary Shelley displays this battle between good and evil very well. Candide, written by Voltaire, is a satire which pokes fun at a number of Enlightenment philosophies. The protagonist, Candide, is a good-hearted but naive young man. His mentor, Pangloss, is described as a teacher of â€Å"metaphysico-theologo-cosmolonigology† who believes that this is â€Å"the best of all possible worlds. † This belief, which is argued by Leibniz, is the main reason why Voltaire is satirizing his play. Pangloss is an optimist, and believes that no matter what happens, this is the greatest life anyone can live because the good will always be the case. Voltaire mocks the idea that good prevails over evil because he believes that human beings perpetrate evil. He believes that evil does, in fact, exist and ignoring that existence is wrong and dangerous. Other philosophers such as Leibniz believe that the existence of any evil in the world would have to mean that God is either not good or not omnipotent, and that idea could not possibly be true. With this reasoning, philosophers such as Leibniz believe that since God is indeed perfect, then the world that he has created can be viewed as no less than perfect as well. All the â€Å"evil† or â€Å"bad† that people claim exists in the world is only because they do not understand what God’s ultimate plan is. Voltaire strongly disagrees with this idea, as it is evident in his novel. He does not accept the idea that a perfect God exists, maybe a God does not even exist. To prove his point, Voltaire uses a great deal of exaggeration; the biggest optimists in the world, Candide and Pangloss, go through a series of hardships and horrors. These woes do not serve any apparent purpose but to attack this belief that this is â€Å"the best of all possible worlds. † A perfect example is when Pangloss tells Candide that he is dying because of syphilis. In chapter four, Candide cries, â€Å"O sage Pangloss what a strange genealogy is this! Is not the devil the root of it? † Pangloss simply replies, â€Å"Not at all, it was a thing unavoidable, a necessary ingredient in the best of worlds; for if Columbus had not caught in an island in America this disease, which contaminates the source of generation, and frequently impedes propagation itself, and is evidently opposed to the great end of nature, we should have neither chocolate nor cochineal. † This part of the novel makes the reader laugh because chocolate is not the result of syphilis; they are in, no way, related. Voltaire then adds more intelligent and rational characters into the story, such as the old woman, who have more pessimistic views about how the world works. By the end of the novel, Pangloss finally admits that maybe this is not â€Å"the best of all possible worlds. † Shelley, Voltaire, and Leibniz all touched on the subject of good versus evil. Voltaire and Leibniz had opposing views on how the world really works. Maybe there is a bigger plan, but evil does exist and evil is created by all of us. Shelley definitely showed how humans can truly be evil. No matter what, there will always be a battle between good versus evil.

Adaptive Optics Overview

Adaptive Optics Overview Adaptive Optics Adaptive optics is a technological development used for optical system performance improvement. It works by reducing the effect of wavefront distortions. Light from a distant celestial object gets distorted as it passes through earths atmosphere, thus a telescope located on earths surface cannot form accurate images. It would take a telescope placed above Earths surface, such as the Hubble Space telescope, to acquire accurate images or a telescope able to measure the effect and attempt to correct it. Instruments using adaptive optics have been created for this exact purpose to eliminate the incoming distortion in light under the effect of our ever-moving atmosphere. Through adaptive optics, optical systems are able to adapt in order to compensate for the effects imposed by the medium in between an object and its image. This is considered the most revolutionary technical development in the field of Astronomy ever since 1609, when Galileo first used an astronomical telescope. A graphical example of this effect is presented below: Figure 1 When uniform waves of starlight enter Earths atmosphere they get distorted due to the variations in temperature in atmospheric cells. This causes the light to travel slightly faster in less dense and warm air, resulting in a non-uniform refraction. An adaptive optical system works by measuring the distortion of an incoming wave of light and correcting its deformation through deformation of a mirror. These optic systems function at high frequencies of around 1000 Hz, which is too fast to allow deformation of a primary mirror so a secondary mirror is used, along with other optical elements placed in the light path. The main use of adaptive optical systems is in astronomical telescopes and laser communication systems. It has other uses as well, such as microscopy and retinal imaging systems, but the primary progress has been developed in telescope technology. To better understand the way adaptive optics work, think of starlight as waves. When these waves reach Earths atmosphere, they are entirely flat, but the turbulence causes them to change shape. The telescope receiving a misshaped wave will return a blurry image. If a telescope with adaptive optics is used, the distorted waves would then reflect off of a deformable mirror which is equipped with hundreds of actuators on its back. These actuators detect the shape of the incoming wave and change the mirrors shape to match that of the wave. The result of this process is an almost entirely accurate image of a flat wave just as it was before entering Earths atmosphere. See figure 2. Figure 2 The system performs wave front sensing and wave front reconstruction, with input from adaptive mirrors. Wavefront Sensing (WFS) WFS provides a signal that is used to estimate the wave front shape. It involves an optical device that is phase- sensitive, along with a highly efficient, low noise detector for photons. The achromatic wave front means that the sensors usually operate within the visible spectrum where the CCD chips and photo diodes have a high quantum efficiency and are virtually noise free. There are mainly three types of WFS that operate in the broadband spectrum with varying sensitivity and dynamic range. They are the curvature WFS, the Shack-Hartmann WFS, and the Pyramid WFS. The Shack-Hartmann WFS is based on producing numerous spots corresponding to the local wavefront through the use of lenslets located across the aperture. The average wavefront slope over the subaperture is determined by observing the position of these spots. The Pyramid WFS is very similar to the Shack-Hartmann WFS when the pyramid is modulated. When the prism is hit on either side by an aberrated ray, it only appears in one pupil. Thus the slope is measured through the distribution of pupil images. The curvature WFS measures intensity distributions in two different planes, corresponding to the wavefronts curvature. The most advantageous part of the curvature WFS is the ease of use. In terms of sensitivity at high spatial frequencies, the curvature WFS performs better than the Shack-Hartmann but has low performance when it comes to low special frequency. Wavefront Reconstruction This helps to calculate a suitable correction vector (consisting of voltages sent to the DM from slopes measured at the WFS) to reconstruct the wavefront. In a closed loop, the WFS operates linearly, therfore the reconstruction of the wavefront can be described as: Dv = s + n Where n is the measurement noise usually assumed to be Gaussian and uncorrelated, D is matrix for the interaction between the wavefront sensing and the deformable mirror These vector matrix calculations are computing intensive, especially because they have to be carried out in microseconds regime. Linear-quadratic-Gaussian (LQG) or Kalman filter can be used to predict the systems state which would be an improvement of wavefront reconstruction and control. Using such a setup, telescope vibrations can be introduced in the state vector and corrected. The only drawback would be the computational complexity which may be overcome by keeping the use of the scheme to a minimum only applying it to certain modes. Deformable Mirrors (DM) The atmosphere distorts the incoming light. The induced optical path differences are corrected by the DM. The mirror surface can be deformed by the movement of many small actuators present beneath the optical surface. The resolution of this deformation depends on the number of actuators, their separation, operation speed, and response time. There are thousands of actuators present in the DM system for large ( There are three primary technologies used to produce adaptive optics deformable mirrors: deformable secondary mirrors (DSM), piezo deformable mirrors and micro-optical-electrical-mechanical systems (MOEMS ). DSM provides adaptive optics correction while keeping up and high transmission and low thermal emissivity. The position of the actuators is handled by an internal control loop. They are normally separated by a few cm and attached to an optical shell. Piezo DMs have a spacing of actuators of several millimeters. Their response time is over a hundred microseconds. Piezo DMs usually require to be controlled by 8 Davies Kasper, an adaptive optics system to provide stable wavefront quality because they do not have local position control. MOEMS use electro-static actuation. They are much smaller than other DMs due to their interactuator spacings of a few hundred microns. Their response time is almost instantaneous, however they require a very large number of actuators, which is currently a technological challenge. Throughout the development of the telescope which started 400 years ago with a small, manual device that later on evolved into a sophisticated, computerized instrument, two parameters have been vital: the diameter of the telescope and the angular resolution. Since the perfect telescope would have the resolution directly proportional to the inverse of the telescopes diameter, the ideal would be to convert incoming wavefronts into a perfectly spherical wavefront, only restricted by the diffraction limit. Adaptive optics were first envisioned by Horace W. Babcock in 1953,[6] but only entered common usage in 1990s, following computer technology development which made it a practical technique. This system was first applied to flood-illumination retinal imaging for the purpose of producing images of single cones in the human eye, in conjunction with scanning laser ophthalmoscopy to produce the first images of retinal microvasculature and associated blood flow and retinal pigment epithelium cells in addition to single cones. In 1995, Lawrence Livermore installed a laser guide star on the 3-meter Shane telescope at the University of Californias Lick Observatory, which later became the first major astronomical telescope consisting of full adaptive optics. There has been massive development in adaptive optics in the field of astronomy following these memorable points in history. However, given that in practice there are still too many errors distorting the wavefront, both due to atmosphere and telescope system, even adaptive optics have limitations. The primary challenges of adaptive optics are: the ability to create an optical system mechanically capable of correcting incoming waves of light and computers ability to keep up with the speed required by the atmosphere. For the first impediment, the telescopes at Mount Wilson Observatory, for example, use two mirrors working together a tip-tilt mirror which provides the correction of incoming light and a second deformable mirror which aims to shape after the distorted wave of light, making it reflect its actual shape as if outside Earths atmosphere. Both the distorted and undistorted images must be known by the system in order to determine the shape of the deformable mirror. There are several methods that can be used for determining the final shape of a point source at the Earths surface. The adaptive optics system at Mount Wilson uses a star near the telescopes target as the source of the distorted wavefront. That is, it looks at a star as seen through the telescope close to the object under study and determines how it has been distorted from its expected appearance. This technique is advantageous because no extra equipment is needed, the light from the source passes through the entire atmosphere and it is located in proximity to the object studied. The downside is that it requires the object being observed to be close to a relatively bright star. Because the isoplanatic patch for the atmosphere is so small, only a small part of the sky could be close enough to a bright star to be observed. There have been attempts to overcome this limitation by using lasers to excite sodium atoms producing an artificial star instead of a guide star. The technique involves projecting a laser beam into the sky close to the object of interest. As long as the lasers light is bright enough, there is no need for a guide stars light. The second challenge is caused by the ever-changing distortions. The deformable mirror must modify quickly to keep up with the incoming light. Since this part of the process must be handled through the use of computers, it requires that the systems be fast enough to analyse the incoming wave of light and transmit the appropriate commands to the mirror many times per second. Thus if the turbulence in the atmosphere is increased, the system will have to worker harder in order to achieve accurate results. Since the first astronomical adaptive optics systems were brought into common use in the early 1990s, a vast number of technical developments have been achieved, numerous ingenious techniques have been created, and it has now come to a point where it is inconceivable to even consider building a large telescope without adaptive optics. Sadly, many of the complex concepts today still exist only on paper or demonstrated on small scale only. Even though many of these innovations have arisen after 2000s, recent years have been mostly dedicated to developing the technology for practical, large scale use of these systems. It seems adaptive optics are fully developed on a theoretical level, but the practical progress is still lacking. It is expected that in the years to come the main areas to be explored and developed will be high-density deformable mirrors with thousands of actuators, high-power sodium lasers and powerful real-time computers with processors exceeding 109 to 1010 operations per second, along with, possibly, fast and low-noise near-IR detectors, since optical detectors with sub-electron read-noise and very high quantum efficiency are already close to perfection. Many recent astronomical discoveries are directly attributed to the new optical observation developments. With the help of Very Large Telescopes, the role of adaptive optics is very important. With this capability, their huge light-gathering along with the ability to resolve small details, has the potential to bring major progress in ground-based astronomy in the new decade. Further in the future, giant optical telescopes such as E-ELT, will rely on advanced adaptive optics systems for virtually all their observations.

Hospitality And Tourism Marketing Strategies

Hospitality And Tourism Marketing Strategies Tourism and hospitality industry has become one of the largest industries in modern and competitive business world. It is a common remedy for development and the world travel and tourism industry supported 234 million jobs (8.7% of total world employment) and contributed 10.3% of world gross domestic product in 2006 (Opening up Trade in Services :Key for Tourism Growth, 2008) . The tourism and hospitality industry has been as a helpful force for world peace; the benefits of mixing together different types of people and different cultures. The travel industry has contributed to the accomplishment of millennium development goals especially in the third world countries. Despite a huge expansion in the travel industry fuelled by opportunities created by the internet and emerging markets consistent profitability for many airlines and travel-related firms remains elusive due to terrorism, recession, the SARS virus, strikes, and the Icelandic ash cloud: the list piles up. Before people tr avel for survival or to better themselves but, now people travel for entertainment, business purpose and amusement. Airship or air-ways business have become easier, faster and cheaper to travel around the globe and the airline industry such as Ryan air plays an important role in the tourism sector. 1.1 Over view of Ryanair airline: Ryanair is an Irish low-cost, first and largest low fares airlines in Europe. From Ryanair case study analysis (february19, 2008) it is shown that Ryanair head office situated at Dublin Airport, Ireland, and has based in London Stansted Airport (the third-busiest airport in the United Kingdom). The late Dr. Tony Ryan and his family have established Ryanair in 1985 with just 25 staff. In July 1985 they had launched their first route from Waterford and London Gatwick which is operated by a 15-seat Bandeirante twin-turboprop according to About Us (1985) www.ryanair.com. To defy the oligopoly market between British Airways (BA) and Aer lingus in Dublin-London route, the newly stabilised Ryanair obtains permission from the regulatory authorities. According to Ryanair website,( About Us ,1986 www.ryanair.com), Comparing the price of the BA and Aer Lingus lowest return fare of  £209,Ryanair launched the first Dublin-London Luton flight in May 1986 for only  £99.So in response to stay in the market those rivals cut down their high fares. Inspite of having three conjugative years growth in aircraft, routes and competitive price, they face a massive loss of  £20m which made the company to follow the model of Southeast Airlines leads a change of its management and structure according to Ryanair website(About Us, History of Ryanair, 1990, www.ryanair.com) .For getting a competitive position in Airline industry, The Ryan family put in an additional  £20m in the company and change their management which is a copy of Southwest Airlines low fares model(A bout Us,1990 www.ryanair.com). Thus they are going to begin their innovative management which generally based on low cost with low fare and starting first low fare business in European airlines sector. Now Ryanair offers lowest fares but high frequency flights, moving in to a single aircraft fleet type. It reduces its Dublin-London Luton flight fares from  £99 to just  £59 return by cutting down free drinks and meals on board. The Easter weekend seat sale fares of  £59 return that launched in 1990 was overcoming customers or passengers demand. A vast of people wanted to get this demanding Easter weekend seat and It was such demanding that in Dawson street there was more than halfway traveller s line for three days to get that bargain (About Us, www.ryanair.com). After taking the Southwest airlines low fare model and establishing cost reduction in their strategy Ryanair is rapidly growing in airline market. Their revenue is increasing rapidly which is shown in their annual report. According to annual report of Ryanair (2003), Revenues have risen increasingly and in 2002 revenue was à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬ 624.1million.After one year it was increasingly from à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬ 624 (2002) to à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬842.5 million (2003) and over the same time, net profits had increased from à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬ 150.4 million (35%) to à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬239.4 million (59%). Thus Ryanair increasing their business rapidly and get the huge amount of profit. Now Rianair is distinctive from their competitor .Currently introducing a fantastic team which consist more than 8000 people and it operates a massive number of 51,100 flights per year which is more than 1400 flights per day (About Us, History of Ryanair, www.ryanair.com). By operating a fleet of 250 new aircraft which includes short to medium range, single aisle, narrow body jet airliner 737-800, Ryanair becomes the worlds best budget airline (www.ryanair.com). Providing more than 1100 low fare routes from 44 bases across 27 countries, Ryanair connects 160 destinations. According to Ryanair website (www.ryanair.com), Within next 02 years before taking account of planned disposals, Rainair want to introduce 64 new aircraft in their fleet and currently it carries 73.5 million passengers (approx) which is almost 15% {(73.5/63.5100}higher than the last year (63.5m). Safety is a most important priority for the management of Ryanair. Their commitment to deliver great safeties for their pa ssenger and this obligation begins with instructing or training of Ryanairs pilot, cabin crews and maintenance human resources and includes a policy of maintaining its aircraft in accordance with the highest European Airline Industry Standards. 2.0 Marketing Concept: Marketing is a process which helps to find out what consumers want, and then provide it for them. It is a system of business activities which is designed to plan, price, promote and distribute services to target markets, in order to achieve organization objectives. Baker (1992,p.20) pointed that marketing is concerned with the establishment of mutually satisfying exchange relationships in which the judgements as to what is satisfying depend upon the perception of the parties to the exchange. Basically, it involves creating the right product with right price and then putting it in the right place with the right promotion; everything is done for making customers or target market happy. Marketing is identifying the target market and satisfying customers now and in the future. In most organizations, an analytical function, strategic direction and facilitates are tactically set to attract customers. Marketing strategy is important for every business. An effective marketing strategy can help a business to get more profit and also getting high position in competitive business market. Marketing strategy can be the life or death of a business. Having a wrong strategy, business will go down. Beginning an effective strategy is the key of success for business. Marketing strategy is the way and compass of an organisation over the long turn. Effective marketing strategy can bring advantages for the organisation. For creating effective strategy company always organized and proper utilized companies resources within a tough and challenging environment, to assemble whatever market needs, to fulfil what customer wants and also fulfil whatever stake holder expect. Successful strategy always examine the present situation and then set up plan which help to deal with all operational aspects needed to realize the achievement of organisational goal as argued by Jain (2000). Its a plan of action that summarizes what will be done to reach the stated objective. Jain (2000) identified the significant characteristic of strategic marketing as putting emphasis on long-term implications and monitoring the business environment, taking into consideration the corporate culture, business resources and the corporate stakeholders and varying roles for different pro ducts or markets. Marketing Strategy deals with the proper selection of marketing opportunities to pursue, examining and analysing target market and creating a right marketing mix that will satisfy customers in the target market. It basically deals with four essential elements which include sale or promotion, product, place and pricing. 2.1 Marketing strategy of Ryanair: Marketing Strategy is the most important business element for an organisation. It helps an organisation to identify organisations target goal and explain how organisation will achieve the target goal within a stated time frame. Generally all organisations have strategies that would maintain or enhance their competitive benefit in the market, and Ryan Air is never an exemption. There are different types of marketing strategy which is followed by organization or company to create an effective strategy, such as guerrilla marketing and viral marketing. Guerrilla marketing and viral marketing both are followed by Ryanair. 2.2.1 Guerrilla marketing: Guerrilla marketing is a marketing process hit hard, hit fast, get in, and get out and also a tactic which help to focuses on low cost, and fast-to-market, promotions. Guerrilla marketing is a marketing process of alternative ways of pursuing straight goals and an established technique of achieving profits with least amount money. The main aim of guerrilla marketing is to create a unique, appealing and stimulating idea to create buzz (buzz is used in word of marketing), and subsequently go round viral. Tom Richard (2005) pointed that with guerrilla marketing business can be able to increase the amount of traffic which comes from their business without spending a huge amount of money. 2.2.1.1Guerrilla marketing of Ryanair: In Ryanair marketing strategy, they follow guerrilla marketing technique which is unquestionably winning in realistic applications, are still new, fresh and not as clearly explored academically as other marketing technique. Strategy of Ryanair based on cost reduction strategy, minimum standard of service, short haul flight, very low prices and no frills, point to point frequency, all these are designed to achieve their goal and having a competitive position within the airline market. Here I discuss some guerrilla marketing techniques of Ryanair. Cost reduction strategy of Ryanair: Low fares and no frills are the key elements of Ryanairs marketing strategy. Low fares are offered by Ryanair to get large amount of passenger traffic while maintaining a continuous focus on cost-containment and operating efficiencies. Strategy of Ryanair is based on cost leadership strategy, in this strategy management manage and do all value adding activities with the lowest manufacturer of product in business and attract customer with their lowest price. Cost reduction strategy helps them to gain competitive position in airline market. Lowest price help them to get many customers. Their assured aim is to divide into constituent parts of air travel and cut costs in every possible area which help them to offer lowest fare to their passenger than other competitor airlines. A particular part of passengers are targeted by Ryanair and they are just absorbed all their energy on that. Their target customers are the ones who are not capable to travel on a main or highest fare airline. Ryan air has established a relationship with consumers by using low cost product which helps them to sell additional higher-margin products and services that develop the consumers interface with the low-cost product or service. Ryanairs strategy, achieve competitive advantage through cost leadership and differentiation across broad and narrow target market so that superior profits could be generated by charging the market average price while holding costs down and this is consistent with Porters (1985) generic strategies. Being reliable: To deliver the best customer service performance is the strategy of Ryanair. According to the reports of Association of European Airlines (2004) Ryanair has achieved better punctuality than their competitor, less lost bags and smaller amount of cancellations than all of the rest of its peer grouping in Europe. Ryanair achieved all these good will because they are purposeful to carry out their services on powerfully or strongly and operating their services from secondary airports which are not congested. Monthly customer service statistics for September, 2010 was published by Ryanair, substantiate that they deliver Europes No 1 airline customer service to their passengers. For the duration of the month of September 2010, it shows that on time arriving flight of Ryanair is 85% of over 42000, fewer complaint which is 1 complaint per 2,000 passengers and less than 1 missing bag per 3,000 passengers was received. Ryanair are more concern about the safeties for passenger. According to Ryan airs annual report (2009), in their twenty years working history they have not had a single occurrence involving major injury to their passengers or flight crew. Point to point Flight frequency: Ryanair also provides frequent point to point flights on short haul routes and this route allow Ryanair to give frequent service. Ryan air use secondary or regional airports because this Secondary and regional airports are usually not as much of crowded than major airports which helps Ryanair to provide superior rates of on time departures, quicker turnaround times (the time an aircraft expend at a gate loading and Unloading passengers), less terminal delays, more competitive airport entrance and handling expenses according to Association of European Airlines report (2004). Point to point flying allow Ryan air to provide non-stop routes and keep away from the expenses of service for connecting passengers, baggage transfer and transit passenger assistance costs. Faster turnaround time is an important factor for Ryanair to exploit aircraft utilisation. Association of European Airlines published on time performance record of some airlines in their statistics reports and the airlines sta tistics (2004). According to their statistics, for the first six months of 2004 Ryanair arrived within 15 minutes of schedule time which was 92%, on the other hand its main competitors like Lufthansa AG (Lufthansa) 84%, Air France 84%, easy Jet Plc (easy Jet) 82%, British Airways 81% and Alitalia S.P.A. (Alitalia) 80%. Building achievement in the Ireland-U.K. market and increasing service to continental Europe, Ryanair intends to pursue a manageable growth preparation targeting precise markets. Targeting specific market will have opportunities for sustained growth by initiating supplementary routes from the U.K. or Ireland to other locations in continental Europe that are currently served by higher-cost, higher-fare carriers; increasing the frequency of service on its existing routes and this are believed by Ryanair. 2.2.2 Viral marketing of Ryanair: According to Allen.K (2008) viral marketing is a marketing technique that employed the concept of using the social networks of other people so that they can spread and expose their business product and services. Viral marketing strategy is a strategy that encourages individual to pass on a marketing message to others, creating an ever-expanding nexus of internet users spreading the world pointed by Hutchison. T, Macy. A et al (2009). This marketing strategy help organization or company to pass their information by using website, video clips, e-books, brand able software, images or text messages. It also can be word of mouth. Some viral marketing strategy is included here which is followed by Ryanair. Straight marketing technique: Ryanair has been using straight marketing techniques for recruitment and maintenance of customers to widen products and services. Travel agents are not used by Ryan air so that they do not pay agency commissions. Customers book online over the internet which helps the company to save agency fees. According to About Us, History of Ryanair (2000) www.ryanair.com, on January 2000 Ryanair started biggest booking website of Europe which is www.ryanair.com. This largest website helps them to reduce their cost and getting huge amount of booking. After launching the website weekly it was taking over 50,000 booking and this huge number of booking was established within three mounts. This website also allows passengers to get the lowest possible cost hotel rooms, car hire, lowest cost travel insurance as well as cheapest rail services (www.ryanair.com, About Us, History of Ryanair (2000). According to Ryanair website (About Us,2000, www.ryanair.com) the weather report in Skynews gets sponsored by Ryanair, The first airline sponsoring weather news by doing this they reach to millions and thousands of people watching television in their homes and people in hotels all over the European countries. The flexibility of getting Online tickets within the wide time span from 15 days up to 4 hours which is prior to the departure of their scheduled flight. Boarding pass too can be reprinted up to 4 hours before the scheduled flight according to online booking, ryanair.com 2009. Ryanair Magazine: For focusing customer and creating good relation with customer Ryanair publish their monthly magazine. In their monthly magazine, it is generally described directly to the interests and purchasing behaviour of Ryanairs exceptional audience and essentials include charming destination guides, travel tour ideas, property and real estate guides, select hotel reviews, seasonal recreation guides, technology updates and individuality profiles according to www.ryanair.com (advertise with us). Their magazine provide their passenger do not need to pay too much and provide them too get cheapest travel tour, cheapest hotel etc.Ryanair also involve to do some social activities. They are donated all money whatever they raise by selling their charity magazines. Their first charity calendar was published in 2008 which features their cabin crew and it raised à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬75,000 for childrens charity Angels Quest in Ireland (www.ryanair.com). 3.0 Public relation tactics: In every organisation public relation strategy is very important to the success of a business. It helps to communicate with customers all over the world. Public relation (PR) is a relation between company or organization and public which provide a service for the company by serving to provide the public and the media a better thoughtful of how the company works. It helps the company to attain its full potential and provide feedback to the company from the public. This usually takes the form of research regarding what areas the public is most happy and unhappy with. Within the tourism industry, public relation is not solely the work of PR department but also the entire employees. Public relations help an organization to develop its mission and vision and also meet customer or public needs and desires. Most times companies take some tactics to make relation with consumer which help to keep the customer coming back for more time. Ryanair also follow some tactics to create a better relationship with customers. Statistics from Association of European Airline (2004) shows Ryanair topped the list of customer satisfaction. In customer satisfaction figures Ryanair has got the pole position by providing best punctuality, the smallest number of lost bags and the least cancellations .Ryanairs head of communications, Peter (Holiday extras, Ryanair best for customer service,2007) said that the high fare airlines basically cannot contend with Ryanair either on price or on customer service satisfaction. Recently, Ryanair revealed that they have entered into agreements with a number of companies to present advertising space on the seatbacks and overhead baggage storage areas on their planes. 3.1 Relationship marketing of Ryanair: There have been many attempts to define relationship marketing. Berry (1983) pointed that Relationship marketing is attracting, maintaining and in multi service organisation-enhancing customer relationships which help to strengthen the relationship with customer and also transforming indifferent customers into loyal ones. Todays competitive market relationship marketing is important to get more customers. Successful relationship marketing helps business to get loyal customer which is important for business. Ryanair has created relationship marketing with public by providing better service quality such as best punctuality, the least lost bags and least cancelation, creating their own website which provide all information and resent news of Ryanair, publishing their monthly magazine, donating charity and sometime offering special offer. For giving special offer 1st November 2010 Ryanair announce that passengers can book their à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬6 seats for travel and booking their à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬6 seats, passenger can travel on more than 500 European destinations in December and January. If passengers want to get this offer they have to booked these seats until midnight (24:00hrs) Thursday (4th Nov) according to Ryanair news (1st November 2010).This offer announcing by Ryanair to make relationship with thei r customer. For making relationship with public Ryanair donated for charity by selling their calendar. From this calendar they got 100,000 euro and donated this money to Dublins Simon Community which is a charity works with homeless people in Dublin city(About Us,www.ryanair.com). 3.2 Customer loyalty tactics of Ryanair No business exits profitability without customers, which means customers are main element for a business and business would be more profitable when they are loyal. Loyal customer is king buy more, buy longer and tells more people. That customer who doesnt return or doesnt make partnership to the organisation or doesnt spread positive word of mouth has no value to an organisation. If any company or organisation wants to win the market place they must be customer-centered. Creating customer loyalty is important for every company and according to Reichheld (1996) greater customer loyalty brings about superior employee satisfaction and improves returns for shareholders. Richheld (1996) identified that customer loyalty, employee loyalty and investor loyalty are the key for the success of an organisation. That means loyalty is the key element to create relationship with public. Like every company Ryanair wants to encourage its repeat visit. Ryanair needs to drive repeat customer business which will give an extra little help to its loyal customer and at the same time boost its revenue. To maximise the number of repeat customer, Ryanair appointed the well recognised incremental revenue provider for online business-Webloyalty which is revealed from webloyalty news on march 2010 (www.webloyalty.com). Webloyalty has a vast experience in online businesses which work on driving repeat customer business by providing an option, named discount scheme to its online shopper. Customers who are booking online with Ryanair, they will have the option to join shopper discount and rewards. This offer provides passengers the option to join a 30-day free trial of Shoppen und Sparen. It also provide year-round discounts of up to 20 percent at over 400 top online retailers and EUR15 cash back check from Webloyalty for their next Ryanair purchase after joining the program. Martin Child, managing director of Europes Webloyalty (2010) said this model will help Ryanair to reward its repeat customers whilst providing a revenue stream and repeat business to their web pages with minimal effort required by them to implement the programme. Sinead Finn(2009), director of commercial revenue (Ryanair), insisted the passengers of Europes largest low fares airline Ryanair has already save billions each year with the lowest guaranteed fares, now in partnership with Webloyalty across three European markets, even more of our passengers can choose to join membership programs of Webloyalty and save more with ongoing discounts. For keeping to its customer, on Thursday 20 August Ryanair, low fares airlines, has announced details of an amazing flight good deal in Bangor as well as Belfast to commemorate A-level results day (Stakeholder media news August 2009). Europes largest low fares airline Ryanair announced that Ryanair Company will benevolent to give away free of charge flights to A-level students. They give these free amazing flight offers for those students who have gained admission test of those colleges and universities which are situated in their five destinations from George Best Belfast City Airport to East Midlands, Bristol, Liverpool, Glasgow Prestwick and London Stansted,. This amazing offer can get those first students who can come in Major Street Bangor and Belfast at 11.00 am to 14.00 pm next Thursday with their A-level results slip as well as letter of offer to the Ryanair Company. Only these students can win these free flight tickets towards university according to Stakeholder media news ( 2009). From Stakeholder media news (2009) ,Laura McCormack, management member of Ryanair said that University can be costly time for students and their parents, but the special offer of low fare airline, Ryanairs guaranteed means that guardian or parents of students as well as students can fly their house and vacation at the lowest fares. All things are done by them for keeping customer. 4.0 Effectiveness Marketing strategies and Public Relation Tactics of Ryanair: Developing and managing effective marketing strategies are important for company to achieve the broad goal and with effective marketing strategy company can beat with other competitor which helps them to get high position in business market. Effective marketing strategy helps company to satisfy their customer and get the target market. A successful marketing strategy must be tractable. Marketing tactics are essential to create an effective strategy. Marketing tactics are the day-to-day actions that marketers undertake and involve the main marketing decision areas. This tactics help to make relationship with customer. Public relation tactics is the first step for an effective strategy. This marketing strategy helps the company to stand in competitive market and to gain competitive position in the airline market. Effective marketing strategy and public relation tactics is a way which helps company to growing revenue, increasing profits and reducing costs. With providing cost reduction strategy, point to point frequency, punctuality and minimum customer service now Ryanair is getting the largest low fares airlines in Europe. Revenue of Ryanair and increasing number of passenger provide that the strategy and public relation tactics of ryanair is so effective. According to About us, full year result 2010 (www.ryanaor.com), on 1st June 2010 Europes largest low fare airline Ryanair announced their full year Profits, it shows that after tax they get à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬319m profit and last year it was à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬105m profit that means it is increasing 204% when most of the competitors of Ryanair such as Bluewings (Ger), Globespan (UK) have announced sufferers or losses because of global recession .It provide that how effective there low cost marketing strategy is! Today customers are so concern about price and Ryanair use these things to attract their customer. Ryanair knows how to make relationship with their customer, what is their customer wanted, what is their expectation. Todays customers are kings for business so that they are always trying to make relationship with their customer by providing on time service .For making relationship with their customer Ryanair launches largest booking website which is www.ryanair.com. According to Ryanair website (About us, 1995, www.ryanair.com)by their effective strategy Ryanair achieve vast quantity of passengers in their Dublin-London route and go beyond some major airlines like British Airways as well as Aer Lingus. In Europe, Dublin-London is the major intercontinental scheduled route than other routes and Irish Airline Ryanair has turn into largest passenger airlines on their all route that is operated by Ryanair to or from Dublin. That means lowest fares, on time and high frequency of Ryanair co ntinues to win success in every market which is operated between Ireland and the UK. Though Ryanair provide minimum services to their customer, their passenger number is increasing day by day because of their cost reduction strategy. According to Ryanair news (4th September 2010),September 2010 their passenger number is 6.84 million and last year it was 6.12 million, it means it is increasing more than 12%. Their biggest growing number of passengers provide that they are doing successful Airlines business in Europe. 5.0 Recommendation and conclusion: Every organization should try to satisfy their customer by providing product and services to achieve their goal. Customer satisfaction is the main intend of the marketing concept. Beyond any doubt, by their effective marketing strategies now Ryanair is the largest low cost airlines in Europe and achieve recognisable brand name. It can be said that their Low cost or no frills marketing strategies helps Ryanair to be able to gain huge amount of passengers. If the company cannot fulfil customer expectations then this company will go down. It can be recommended that their low cost marketing strategy is so effective. It can be said that their low cost strategy is a fundamental reason for them to get high profit. Making relationship with customer is most important to get long term business and customer loyalty is the most powerful for increasing companies advert, rising companys good will and getting more profit. But Ryanair provide minimum service, getting a position in competitive market they should think about that customer is valuable and it is recommended that they should think to increase customer loyalty.It can be said If Ryanair increase their public relatio n, they will get superior success and also can increase their business in competitive business world. Ryanair marketing strategy is based on cost leadership strategy that mean their main marketing concept is to cut their cost in every possible way and attract customer with their lowest fare. As their business is airlines business which depends with oil price, this oil price is increasing day by day. So, if they want to do their business, it is recommended that they should think about their price strategy and increase the price of their fare to stay in business. 6.0 References and Bibliography: 1. Opening up Trade in Services :Key for Tourism Growth(2008)[Online] Available at http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/38/11/40191324.pdf 2. Laura Lake,(2010)Content Marketing[online] Available:http://marketing.about.com/od/strategytutorials/a/contentmarketing.htm 3. Baker, M. J. (1992),strategic marketing management, New York; Wiley 4. Jain, S. (2000),Marketing Planining and Strategy,6th edition, Cincinnati: South-Western College Publishing 5. Dibb, S.; Simkin, L.; et al (2006)Marketing Concept and Strategies fifth edtion, New York: Houghton Mifflin 6. Brennan, R., Baines, P.et al a(2003)Contemporary Strategic Marketing New York; Palgrave Macmillan. 7. Marketing teacher.com Ryan Air case study[Online] Available: http://marketingteacher.com/case-study/ryanair-case-study.html 8.Strategy-Ryanair-Strategy Available: http://www.ryanair.com/doc/investor/Strategy.pdf 9.Thinking made easy(2008)Ryanair case study analysis [Online] Available http://ivythesis.typepad.com/term_paper_topics/2008/02/ryanair-case-st.htmle: 10. Casestudyinc.com (2010)case study on ryanair, the biggest low-cost European airline [Online]Available: http://www.casestudyinc.com/ryanair-low-fares-airline-case-study 11. Ryanair.com (2010) [Online] Available at http://www.ryanair.com/en/news/ryanair-no-1customer-service-stats-august-2010 12. Smith+co (2009) Ryanair-a branded customer experience?[Online

Neanderthal Extinction Essay -- Anthropology Essays Paleontology Paper

Neanderthal Extinction    Neanderthals and modern humans coexisted for well over 100,000 years.   Then suddenly Homo neandertalensis began to die out and surrender the earth to Homo sapiens.   Paleontologists and anthropologists have entertained several possibilities to the causes of this event: interbreeding among Neanderthals and humans, competition for natural resources, and Darwin’s theory of â€Å"survival of the fittest.†Ã‚   What the real cause has been has plagued scientists for years. Now, due to an international research team from Germany, those possibilities have been even further deduced, making it easier to pinpoint the exact reason Homo neandertalensis became extinct.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Scientists thought that interbreeding would be a logical assumption to the Neanderthal conundrum.   Unfortunately, any evidence of DNA from Neanderthals mixed with human DNA is difficult to come by because their fossils are usually tarnished upon finding.   That is until Svante Paabo, and his research team from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, came across the remains of twenty-four Neanderthals and forty early humans.*   All of these fossils were nearly 40,000 years old and were from Germany, Russia, and Croatia.   Nine of these fossils (four Neanderthal and five human) contained mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), completely intact.   Mitochondrial DNA is tougher than the DNA found in cell nuclei; it is also found in the cytoplasm of a fertilized egg and is passed only through maternal lineage.   This makes it much easier for the team to study and makes testing more accurate.      Paabo’s team, from Leipzig, Germany, used a method of amino acid content as a way of measuring extractible DNA from the bones.   The amino acid method was a... ...ut there on what happened to the Neanderthals, such as competition or fighting.   Scientists also are aware of the fact that mtDNA is only carried from the mother.   This means that there may still be evidence of interbreeding out there that is carried from the male.   Our technology is not yet strong enough to rule out both sexes as a carrier of common genes.   Therefore the case of interbreeding still remains to be closed.   However Paabo and his team are confident that their research has proved that Neanderthals could not have died out solely because of interbreeding.   Scientists are still trying to conclude what exactly did the Neanderthals in; this discovery brings them one step closer, but not completely to the edge.   Source All references and resources are taken from the Public Library of Science, Biology March 2004 issue and from Science March 16, 2004

Sexual and Maternal Instincts in James Fenimore Coopers Last of the Mohicans :: The Last of the Mohicans

Cora Munro's Sexual and Maternal Instincts in James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans Cora Munro's relationship with her younger, fairer sister Alice demonstrates a distinct mother-daughter pattern that manifests itself in every interaction between the two women. Throughout James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans, the character of Cora continuously hides her sister's face in her bosom as an indication of undying protection from the ravages of the American frontier. Alice depends on Cora as her champion and defender but, most unmistakably as a mother figure. Cora maintains a immutable position of motherly nurture with her sister, however, when interacting with other frontier characters, Cora shifts her style of human interaction towards a conscious understanding of her gender capacity. Though not overtly sexual, Cora does demonstrate a cognizance of female sexuality and feminine influence on various male characters. Cora does not often demonstrate motherly instinct while practicing the powers of her sex; rather, her authority particular to each sphere man ifests itself during situations of great conflict and tension concerning Alice or, separately, the other surrounding male characters. The narrator refers to Cora's motherly intuition in many instances, but most especially when Alice demonstrates a case of need or dependence. When Alice shows doubt and fear, Cora immediately rushes to protect and soothe her. Cooper writes, "For many moments the elder sister looked upon the younger, with a countenance that wavered with powerful and contending emotions. At length she spoke, though her tones had lost heir rich and calm fulness, in an expression of tenderness, that seemed maternal" (109). Cooper writes clearly of the strong bond that exists between the sisters while illustrating a power relationship that has Cora playing the role of shepherd and Alice as that of a small, helpless lamb. Moreover, Cooper repeatedly shows the character of Alice grasping onto the arm of Duncan Heyward†¹an obvious physical need for refuge and shield†¹while Cora remains free of an explicit male bond and receives the admiration of the remaining men from afar. Alice, the weaker of the two, appeals to her sister for attention while Cora remains aloof and confident. Cooper, at many instances, describes Cora with almost beatific characteristics which heighten her esteem and power as a female character. Her motherly feelings towards Alice verge on the saintly; Cora often rises above common human sensibility and takes on the role of a martyr in the manner that a mother would for her child.