Contemplating a career in tourism management and wondering what the future looks like for the travel & tourism industry? Here are ten hot new trends that may come up in your hospitality management courses. Impress your professors ? not to mention your future employers ? by learning all you can about them now.
1. The New Concept in Town: Lobbies You Won?t Want to Leave
Traditionally, the hotel lobby has been a transitional zone, a place for weary travellers to park their bags as they check in. But this is changing. Tourism management staff are beginning to see lobbies as potential gathering places, where guests can even get to know one another, if desired.
These new-style lobbies feature such community-building design elements as:
curated bookshelves
espresso machines
coffeehouse tables
communal seating
2. Bye, Bye Business Class
The same study found that 58% of respondents were expecting to travel less for business over the coming year. Tourism management strategies of the future may be oriented towards the increasingly important under-25 market.
3. More Online Booking
The days of phoning up a hotel from your landline appear to be over. Today?s guests book their stays online. Hospitality management courses must include an overview of the latest Internet booking technology.
4. More Mobile Booking
The travel & tourism industry is adapting well to online booking, but mobile booking may be the true wave of the future. According to the same Deloitte/TIAC study mentioned earlier, youth travellers report being comfortable with the idea of booking accommodations on their smart phones.
5. Comfort Food in Room 9, Please
In the ?80s and ?90s, there was a travel & tourism trend towards such exotic and high-end food as shrimp and more shrimp, sushi and champagne ? the more expensive or exotic, the better. Today?s food trends, however, have a distinctly retro flavour about them. Some travel & tourism establishments are distinguishing themselves with an old-fashioned specialty: comfort food.
Popping up on travel & tourism menus everywhere are such items as:
shepherd?s pie served with a vintage beer in a stubby bottle
macaroni and cheese
sweet potato fries
apple crisp made with local, in-season, heirloom apples
cookies and milk for guests of all ages at bedtime
nostalgic candy on the pillow at turn down
6. Guests of All Ages? Or Mainly Youth
In travel & tourism, the youth market is up. In one recent survey conducted by Deloitte and the Tourism Industry of Canada (TIAC), 51% of respondents between the ages of 18 and 24 reported, ?Travel is one of the most important things in my life.? On average, these respondents were planning to take at least two trips over the coming year.
7. Rise of the Boutique Hotel
The era of the big-name chain hotel may be over as travellers opt for smaller, more personalized boutique options instead.
8. Electronic Check-in
Self check-in kiosks, like the ones at airports, may soon be a common feature in hotel lobbies. They are expected to appeal to travellers who would like to check in as quickly as possible. For tourism management, they present an interesting possibility to save money on human resources.
9. Pump Up the Soap
Many hotels are installing pumps for personal care products in the shower. These devices have the double advantage of saving money and using less packaging than the complimentary mini-bottles of shampoo, conditioner and lotion.
10. More Showers Than Baths
Hotels are building more bathrooms with showers, keeping a small percentage of baths on hand, only to satisfy customers with special needs or who are travelling with small children.
Intrigued by these trends? To learn more about the future of tourism management, look for hospitality management courses in your area.
Contact the Canadian Tourism College for more information on their Tourism Programs.
Contact: Anne DeLotto Baier abaier@health.usf.edu 813-974-3303 University of South Florida (USF Health)
Delaying surgical repair reduced secondary brain swelling, damage in TBI animal model study
Tampa, FL (March 22, 2012) -- Immediate skull reconstruction following trauma that penetrates or creates an indentation in the skull can aggravate brain damage inflicted by the initial injury, a study by a University of South Florida research team reports. Using a rat model for moderate and severe traumatic brain injury, the researchers also showed that a delay of just two days in the surgical repair of skull defects resulted in significantly less brain swelling and damage.
The study was published March 16, 2012 in the online journal PloS ONE. While further investigation is needed, the findings have implications for the acute treatment of traumatic brain injury (TBI), considered the signature wound of soldiers who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, said the study's principal investigator Cesar Borlongan, PhD, professor and vice chair of research at the USF Health Department of Neurosurgery and Brain Repair
"A double-edged sword," is how Borlongan describes the inflammation and subsequent swelling of brain tissue that occurs immediately following TBI.
When the brain is initially penetrated -- by a bullet, shrapnel, other debris, or even the force of blast waves, for instance -- inflammation helps recruit the body's own good (glial) cells to the damaged site to limit localized injury. For a short time, the inflammation-induced edema, or swelling of the brain, is beneficial to help relieve pressure within the skull. However, chronic inflammation precipitates increases in intracranial pressure that perpetuate a vicious cycle leading to secondary cell injury and death.
Cranioplasty is an operation to repair malformations of the skull caused by TBI; the procedure may involve replacing a missing piece of the skull protecting the underlying brain and/or improving the appearance of the skull's surface. Current clinical practice emphasizes performing cranioplasty quickly upon initial hospital admission to help reduce the likelihood of infection or other complications that may arise when the brain is exposed.
"Our preclinical study indicates that reconstructing the skull too early in the brain's natural healing process may interfere with critical therapeutic benefits of brain swelling post-TBI," Dr. Borlongan said. "It's better to wait at least two days."
The USF researchers studied rats with moderate and severe TBI. Post-TBI, the animals were randomly assigned to skull bone flap replacement with or without bone wax (a sterile mixture to help control bleeding from bone surfaces); no skull reconstruction; or delayed skull reconstruction with bone wax alone, which was performed two days following TBI.
The brains of all the animals were analyzed in the laboratory five days after surgery. While immediate reconstruction provided aesthetic repair of the skull fracture, this early surgical procedure, with bone wax alone or with bone wax and skull bone flap, significantly increased cortical brain tissue damage in both moderate and severe animal models.
Overall, whether the rat model was moderate or severe TBI, delayed reconstruction limited the worsening of brain tissue damage compared to immediate reconstruction. In fact, for moderate TBI, the extent of damage observed in the brains of rats that received delayed reconstruction was on a par with that in the animals getting no reconstruction. In those with severe traumatic brain injury, the tissue damage was significantly larger. The authors suggest this may mean a two-day delay, while more beneficial than immediate reconstruction, was not sufficient to counteract the intracranial pressure generated by severe TBI.
The researchers concluded that the timing of cranioplasty warrants further evaluation in both laboratory and clinical settings.
"Our results suggest that delaying cranioplasty until the TBI-induced cerebral swelling has subsided may reduce unwanted exacerbation of cortical damage associated with skull reconstruction," Borlongan said. "We need to carefully weigh the risk of infection that comes from leaving the brain somewhat exposed with the benefit of enhancing the brain's own repair of its cells."
"Finding a safe and effective cranioplasty regimen will require determining the optimal period of time when we let the brain repair itself and balancing that with when to best introduce a regimen of surgical skull repair and other potential therapies," said co-author Harry van Loveren, MD, the David W. Cahill endowed professor and chair of the USF Health Department of Neurosurgery and Brain Repair.
###
The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, the James and Esther King Foundation for Biomedical Research Program, SanBio Inc., Celgene Cellular Therapeutics, KM Pharmaceutical Consulting and NeuralStem Inc.
Citation:
"Immediate, but Not Delayed, Microsurgical Skull Reconstruction Exacerbates Damage in Experimental Traumatic Brain Injury Model;" Loren E. Glover, Naoki Tajiri, Tsz Lau, Yuji Kaneko, Harry van Loveren, Cesario V. Borlongan; PloS ONE 7(3), e33646, March 16, 2012.
- USF Health -
USF Health's mission is to envision and implement the future of health. It is the partnership of the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine, the College of Nursing, the College of Public Health, the College of Pharmacy, the School of Biomedical Sciences and the School of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Sciences; and the USF Physician's Group. The University of South Florida is a global research university ranked 34th in federal research expenditures for public universities.
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Contact: Anne DeLotto Baier abaier@health.usf.edu 813-974-3303 University of South Florida (USF Health)
Delaying surgical repair reduced secondary brain swelling, damage in TBI animal model study
Tampa, FL (March 22, 2012) -- Immediate skull reconstruction following trauma that penetrates or creates an indentation in the skull can aggravate brain damage inflicted by the initial injury, a study by a University of South Florida research team reports. Using a rat model for moderate and severe traumatic brain injury, the researchers also showed that a delay of just two days in the surgical repair of skull defects resulted in significantly less brain swelling and damage.
The study was published March 16, 2012 in the online journal PloS ONE. While further investigation is needed, the findings have implications for the acute treatment of traumatic brain injury (TBI), considered the signature wound of soldiers who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, said the study's principal investigator Cesar Borlongan, PhD, professor and vice chair of research at the USF Health Department of Neurosurgery and Brain Repair
"A double-edged sword," is how Borlongan describes the inflammation and subsequent swelling of brain tissue that occurs immediately following TBI.
When the brain is initially penetrated -- by a bullet, shrapnel, other debris, or even the force of blast waves, for instance -- inflammation helps recruit the body's own good (glial) cells to the damaged site to limit localized injury. For a short time, the inflammation-induced edema, or swelling of the brain, is beneficial to help relieve pressure within the skull. However, chronic inflammation precipitates increases in intracranial pressure that perpetuate a vicious cycle leading to secondary cell injury and death.
Cranioplasty is an operation to repair malformations of the skull caused by TBI; the procedure may involve replacing a missing piece of the skull protecting the underlying brain and/or improving the appearance of the skull's surface. Current clinical practice emphasizes performing cranioplasty quickly upon initial hospital admission to help reduce the likelihood of infection or other complications that may arise when the brain is exposed.
"Our preclinical study indicates that reconstructing the skull too early in the brain's natural healing process may interfere with critical therapeutic benefits of brain swelling post-TBI," Dr. Borlongan said. "It's better to wait at least two days."
The USF researchers studied rats with moderate and severe TBI. Post-TBI, the animals were randomly assigned to skull bone flap replacement with or without bone wax (a sterile mixture to help control bleeding from bone surfaces); no skull reconstruction; or delayed skull reconstruction with bone wax alone, which was performed two days following TBI.
The brains of all the animals were analyzed in the laboratory five days after surgery. While immediate reconstruction provided aesthetic repair of the skull fracture, this early surgical procedure, with bone wax alone or with bone wax and skull bone flap, significantly increased cortical brain tissue damage in both moderate and severe animal models.
Overall, whether the rat model was moderate or severe TBI, delayed reconstruction limited the worsening of brain tissue damage compared to immediate reconstruction. In fact, for moderate TBI, the extent of damage observed in the brains of rats that received delayed reconstruction was on a par with that in the animals getting no reconstruction. In those with severe traumatic brain injury, the tissue damage was significantly larger. The authors suggest this may mean a two-day delay, while more beneficial than immediate reconstruction, was not sufficient to counteract the intracranial pressure generated by severe TBI.
The researchers concluded that the timing of cranioplasty warrants further evaluation in both laboratory and clinical settings.
"Our results suggest that delaying cranioplasty until the TBI-induced cerebral swelling has subsided may reduce unwanted exacerbation of cortical damage associated with skull reconstruction," Borlongan said. "We need to carefully weigh the risk of infection that comes from leaving the brain somewhat exposed with the benefit of enhancing the brain's own repair of its cells."
"Finding a safe and effective cranioplasty regimen will require determining the optimal period of time when we let the brain repair itself and balancing that with when to best introduce a regimen of surgical skull repair and other potential therapies," said co-author Harry van Loveren, MD, the David W. Cahill endowed professor and chair of the USF Health Department of Neurosurgery and Brain Repair.
###
The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, the James and Esther King Foundation for Biomedical Research Program, SanBio Inc., Celgene Cellular Therapeutics, KM Pharmaceutical Consulting and NeuralStem Inc.
Citation:
"Immediate, but Not Delayed, Microsurgical Skull Reconstruction Exacerbates Damage in Experimental Traumatic Brain Injury Model;" Loren E. Glover, Naoki Tajiri, Tsz Lau, Yuji Kaneko, Harry van Loveren, Cesario V. Borlongan; PloS ONE 7(3), e33646, March 16, 2012.
- USF Health -
USF Health's mission is to envision and implement the future of health. It is the partnership of the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine, the College of Nursing, the College of Public Health, the College of Pharmacy, the School of Biomedical Sciences and the School of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Sciences; and the USF Physician's Group. The University of South Florida is a global research university ranked 34th in federal research expenditures for public universities.
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?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
This is Mariusz Pudzianowski, he's (I think) a five time World Strongest Man, he's a strongman competition competitor and MMA fighter. He's 6'1, and hovers between 260-310 pounds, as you see, he's pretty ripped, looks to be pretty low bodyfat. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariusz_Pudzianowski There's the wikipedia page about him, what struck me the most was, his diet.
On one of the World Stongman events shown on TV, as well as in an interview for MTV, Mariusz when asked about diet said: "I eat everything. I do not follow any particular diet. I eat anything I want, anytime I want".[28]
Quote:
My energy comes from my diet. Breakfast is 10 eggs and two to three pounds of bacon. Between meals, I eat lots of candy. In the morning, it will be several 3 Musketeers and/or Snickers bars; I need them for energy. Lunch, at 1 or 2 PM, is a double meal of a Polish pork chop, sauerkraut and potatoes. An hour later, I work out, then take lots of supplements: magnesium, creatine, amino acids, all that stuff, and more chocolate. Dinner is whatever meat I can grab?steaks, pork chops, bacon?plus more sauerkraut and potatoes. At 9 or 10 PM, I work out again. Afterward, I have a protein shake and more chocolate. At 3 or 4 AM, I wake up and have more chocolate, then go back to sleep until morning.[29]
Quite shocking, no? He seemingly breaks all the rules, and is, well, the world's strongest man, and he's got a fairly low bodyfat percentage, definitely lower than someone like Hossein Rezazadeh, the super heavyweight Olympic weightlifting record holder. Anyway, yeah, regarding the diet, though, breaks all the rules, and, well.... look at the results. One thing I thought of in regard to this was the Lewis Black routine, the one about the guy who lived to be 115 eating bread fried in fatback and Thunderbird wine (which is an exaggerated story.) Here's the skit I'm talking about, btw...
Anyone else have any thoughts about his diet? Nuts? Awesome? _________________ 'A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him, saying, 'You are mad; you are not like us.' Saying 25, Sayings of the Desert Fathers. Abba Anthony.
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Sales Mentor Karen Graves will bring Fortune 500 sales training to Tri-state small business owners and entrepreneurs on April 20th. The event is geared towards teaching business owners critical selling skills that will generate revenue in their businesses. Fast revenue generation allows small businesses to survive past the crucial first few ?make or break years?.
Tarrytown, NY (PRWEB) March 21, 2012
On Friday, April 20, 2012, Karen Graves, CEO of Your Sales Fix, will present a full day sales training workshop for Tri-state area entrepreneurs and small business owners. The event is geared towards teaching business owners critical selling skills that will generate revenue in their businesses. Fast revenue generation allows small businesses to survive past the crucial first few ?make or break years?.
Area business owners will benefit from the interactivity of the workshop where they will learn and apply the information. They will also have the ability to network with other entrepreneurs to create expanded connections and opportunities.
Graves is a former award-winning Team Manager of U.S. Sales Training for Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, now turned successful entrepreneur. ?Corporations spend tens of thousands of dollars equipping their sales teams with first rate training to guarantee the success of the organization,? Graves said. ?Small business owners don?t have those resources but still deserve the same level of training because their livelihood depends on it.?
Graves prides herself on turning salesphobics into salesaholics. Frustrated by seeing entrepreneurs fail in their businesses due to their fear of sales and lack of consistent income, she has made it her mission to help them sell confidently so their businesses thrive. She is adept at showing her clients that they are capable of selling without being pushy or aggressive, and teaching them how to master the art of communication so they are more confident ? period. Ultimately, her clients increase their revenues and have sustainable business structures, as well as businesses they enjoy.
The Close That Sale Event takes place on Friday, April 20, 2012, from 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the DoubleTree Hotel, 455 South Broadway, in Tarrytown, New York. Light refreshments will be provided and lunch is available for purchase on premises or within walking distance. Free parking is available. A limited number of seats are available. To register for this event, visit http://closethatsaleevent.com or contact Lisa Englert, Customer Relations Manager, at Lisa(at)yoursalesfix(dot)com.
About Your Sales Fix
Your Sales Fix helps clients clients learn to sell without being pushy or aggressive so they are more confident ? period. Clients increase their revenues and have sustainable business structures, as well as businesses they enjoy. For more information, please visit http://www.yoursalesfix.com or call (914)620-5084. __title__ sales training workshop]
For the original version on PRWeb visit: http://www.prweb.com/releases/prweb2012/0321YourSalesFixEvent0420/prweb9313072.htm
This Friday, March 16, 2012 photo shows Dawn Meehan, a teacher's assistant and writer, in her classroom at Gotha Middle School in Windermere, Fla. Meehan, 42, had a colonoscopy in February 2012, under deep sedation monitored by an anesthesia specialist; her insurance covered everything. Colonoscopies to screen for colon cancer usually aren't recommended?until age 50 but Meehan had the exam because of symptoms for a common?digestive disease. She was a low-risk patient and said if her colonoscopy doctor had offered it, she might have chosen light sedation. But even though the extra sedation is more costly, Meehan said patients who want it should get it, because otherwise some might "shy away from getting screened." (AP Photo/John Raoux)
This Friday, March 16, 2012 photo shows Dawn Meehan, a teacher's assistant and writer, in her classroom at Gotha Middle School in Windermere, Fla. Meehan, 42, had a colonoscopy in February 2012, under deep sedation monitored by an anesthesia specialist; her insurance covered everything. Colonoscopies to screen for colon cancer usually aren't recommended?until age 50 but Meehan had the exam because of symptoms for a common?digestive disease. She was a low-risk patient and said if her colonoscopy doctor had offered it, she might have chosen light sedation. But even though the extra sedation is more costly, Meehan said patients who want it should get it, because otherwise some might "shy away from getting screened." (AP Photo/John Raoux)
In this Friday, March 16, 2012 photo, Dawn Meehan, a teacher's assistant and writer, sits at her desk in her classroom at Gotha Middle School in Windermere, Fla. Meehan, 42, had a colonoscopy in February 2012, under deep sedation monitored by an anesthesia specialist; her insurance covered everything. Colonoscopies to screen for colon cancer usually aren't recommended?until age 50 but Meehan had the exam because of symptoms for a common?digestive disease. She was a low-risk patient and said if her colonoscopy doctor had offered it, she might have chosen light sedation. But even though the extra sedation is more costly, Meehan said patients who want it should get it, because otherwise some might "shy away from getting screened." (AP Photo/John Raoux)
CHICAGO (AP) ? Few people want to be wide awake during their colonoscopy exams, but new research suggests too many are getting extra sedation treatment, costing as much as $1 billion yearly in potentially needless services.
Use of anesthesiologists to monitor sedation during colonoscopies and other digestive imaging tests has more than doubled in recent years, and they're used most often for low-risk patients who typically don't need the extra help, the study authors said.
"These services are not harming patients. They're basically giving them a luxury that is not strictly necessary," said the study's lead author, Dr. Soeren Mattke, a senior Rand Corp. scientist. That matters at a time when policymakers are trying to rein in rising medical costs, the authors said.
Patients usually are briefly sedated for a colonoscopy, and some kinds of sedation require monitoring by specialists. That includes use of propofol, a powerful intravenous drug that can cause deep sedation and was implicated in pop star Michael Jackson's death. Anesthesiologist-monitored sedation, with or without propofol, is recommended for high-risk patients, including those who are old or sick or previously had complications with anesthesia.
While propofol sedation is also sometimes given to low-risk colonoscopy patients, the study authors suggest that's often unnecessary. Drugs usually recommended for these patients typically cause lighter sedation, though most patients don't remember anything about the exams afterward. These drugs can be given by the doctor doing the exam, but the study suggests they're often also being given and monitored by anesthesiologists.
The researchers analyzed insurance claims data on more than 6 million U.S. adults who had the colon exams or imaging scopes of the upper digestive tract between 2003 and 2009. The tests are done to screen for colon cancer, acid reflux and other illnesses.
When the study began, 14 percent of these tests included an anesthesiologist. That climbed to more than 30 percent by 2009. The portion of this extra sedation treatment given to low-risk commercially insured patients remained constant during the study and fell slightly in Medicare fee-for-service patients. But the study authors said far too many low-risk patients are still getting this treatment ? more than three-fourths of the commercially insured patients and two-thirds of the Medicare group.
The extra treatment added an average of about $500 to an insured patient's bill in 2009, and $150 to a Medicare bill. In 2009, about 3 million colonoscopies and other digestive scoping tests were done in low-risk patients but included anesthesia services, amounting to $1 billion in potentially unnecessary costs, the study authors estimated.
The study appears in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.
While some insurance policies exclude coverage for anesthesiologist monitoring for low-risk patients undergoing these exams, insurers sometimes pay for it, Mattke said.
Because of doctor backlash, Aetna, one of the nation's largest health insurers, has indefinitely delayed a policy it tried to implement in 2008 that would have excluded this coverage for low-risk patients, said Dr. James Cross, Aetna's chief of national medical policy and operations.
Reasons for the frequent use of anesthesiologists during these exams vary. Sometimes low-risk patients undergoing colonoscopies and other digestive scoping exams request propofol because they want to be totally unconscious and have heard that it wears off quickly and doesn't cause grogginess, unlike other sedatives, said Dr. John Vargo, a spokesman for the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy and a digestive specialist at the Cleveland Clinic.
Propofol requires careful monitoring because it has "a narrow window between providing deep sedation and making people stop breathing," and unlike other sedatives, there's no rescue drug to reverse its effects, said Dr. Norm Cohen, vice president for professional affairs at the American Society of Anesthesiologists.
The rising use of anesthesiologists may partly reflect more obese patients and users of Vicodin and other opiate-based prescription drugs, Cohen said. Both may be missed under coding used in the study, but they should be considered at risk because sleep apnea that often accompanies obesity makes sedation trickier, and users of opiate painkillers often require higher than usual doses of sedation, he said.
Vargo said doctors who do the exams can be trained to use propofol in healthy patients, but a journal editorial said some prefer anesthesiologist assistance because it allows them to focus on the colon exam, and if something goes wrong with the sedation, they may not be held legally accountable.
Dawn Meehan, 42, an Orlando, Fla.-area teacher's assistant and writer, had a colonoscopy last month under deep sedation monitored by an anesthesia specialist; her insurance covered everything. Colonoscopies to screen for colon cancer usually aren't recommended?until age 50 but Meehan had the exam because of symptoms for a common?digestive disease.
She was a low-risk patient and said if her colonoscopy doctor had offered it, she might have chosen light sedation. But even though the extra sedation is more costly, Meehan said patients who want it should get it, because otherwise some might "shy away from getting screened."
[unable to retrieve full-text content]What are some appealing questions to ask a psychic media Is anything fair game? Can a media make contact with anyone I lack alternatively do they simply see whoever ?shows up? instead? In short.whether I actually lack to ...
6waves Lolapps, the social gaming company that was formed out of a merger just half a year ago, shed most of its employees on the development side today to focus on publishing other studios' titles. The decision today seems to undo some of what that merger agreement created last July and we hear it had to do with a limited runway of cash. Last summer, social gaming company Lolapps merged with game publisher 6waves to form a new entity that was a dual producer and publisher. They then raised funding from Korean gaming giant Nexon and Insight Venture Partners. The amount they raised was undisclosed, but an SEC filing showed a $35 million round. The company insists, however, that the merger is still in place and Lolapps is not being spun out. They didn't disclose how many people were laid off.
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6waves Lolapps, the social gaming company that was formed out of a merger just half a year ago, shed most of its employees on the development side today to focus on publishing other studios' titles. The decision today seems to undo some of what that merger agreement created last July and we hear it had to do with a limited runway of cash. Last summer, social gaming company Lolapps merged with game publisher 6waves to form a new entity that was a dual producer and publisher. They then raised funding from Korean gaming giant Nexon and Insight Venture Partners. The amount they raised was undisclosed, but an SEC filing showed a $35 million round. The company insists, however, that the merger is still in place and Lolapps is not being spun out. They didn't disclose how many people were laid off.