No description available.

No description available.

The purpose of this study was to examine the utilization of Front of House and Back of House technology applications by U.S. restaurants across different types of restaurants along with their level of IT management style, and the importance of these technology applications to the restaurants' operations. This study used secondary data. The survey data collected from 500 randomly selected restaurant technology managers who are current subscribers of Hospitality Technology Magazine as of January 2013. Response rate was 27.2% and these sample groups represented 67,299 restaurant units. The data analysis was organized into 3 parts (descriptive, factor analysis and independent samples t-test). In the descriptive part of the data analysis, the information about respondents' job functions, company characteristics and companies' IT perspectives are evaluated. In the second part, factor analysis was used. Since the factor analysis is a data reduction technique, factor analysis is used to create correlated variable composites and to reduce variables for better interpretation. The third and final stage of the data analysis included testing hypotheses based on factor analysis outcomes by using an independent samples t-test. The main purpose of using an independent samples t-test is to determine whether position (IT versus Non-IT), types of restaurant (Chain versus Independent), business leadership and technology leadership (Innovator versus Follower) differ on the factor attributes.

The study proposes to clarify what are the general training and further education needs of personnel who intend to enter a career in the Catering, Restaurant and Liquor Sales sectors of the Tourism and Hospitality Industry, and those who are already employed in one of the sectors. The study also proposes: 1. to identify the immediate training needs to meet the specific current requirements of the Industry in the ACT and surrounding districts; 2. to ascertain the perceived future requirements to allow for the provision of relevant training and further education facilities to meet the challenge of tomorrow. It is also hoped that the results of the needs analysis will assist curriculum planners in the formulation of accurate educational objectives to assist the construction of valid programmes of study leading to employment into the Industry.

Jack Derby of Derby Management claims that a sound Business Plan is necessary for the owner as well as the assembled team to start a business and incorporate it. And the actual process of planning is the key to creating a workable Business Plan. The Business Plan consolidates management direction, provides debate and consensus, guides for potential crisis and acts as the company’s scorecard. A well thought out Business Plan is particularly crucial in order for a start-up to secure funds, as it contains disciplined balance, logical vision, financial projections, blue print for now as well as 3-5 years out, formal but accessible and not least creative. These are but some of the criteria for funding. In this project, I will explore how to plan, research and develop a workable model for a Business Plan. In particular, I will focus on devising a business model which describes the rationale of how an organization creates, delivers, and captures value – economic, social, or other forms of value with its market offering. Such a study should give insights into the workings of potential business entity that can excel in Asia Pacific, and break into global market too.

<p> The purpose with my study was primarily to illuminate the students' expectations on gained knowledge during their studies at the upper secondary school Hotel- and Restaurant program, and to what extent these expectations were fulfilled. Secondarily, the purpose was to compare the students' expected and perceived knowledge with the program goals set by the Swedish government and the knowledge requirements expressed in a pilot study made by the Education council of the Hotel and restaurant business (UHR, 2007).I chose a quantative approach and I used an anonymous group enquiry among students at the Hotel- and Restaurant program at two different upper secondary schools to carry out my study.Tendencies in the result suggested that the students at the Hotel- and Restaurant program expected high knowledge level within the competence areas of Guest reception and communication, Cleaning and hygiene, Cooking of cold and hot dishes and Waiting. The expectations were not big within the areas Computers and Internet and Business economics and management.Fulfillment of expected knowledge tended to be high within the areas where the expectations were big. It might therefore be a good investment for schools to work on the student expectations to increase motivation within the low expectation areas.A confrontation of the tendencies in the result with the program goals and the competence requirements expressed in the UHR study, suggested that the upper secondary Hotel- and Restaurant education might focus some more the areas of Guest reception and communication, Beverages and Organization of banquets. Business economics and management should be given much more weight.</p> / <p> Syftet med min undersökning var primärt att belysa elevernas förväntningar på vilken kunskap utbildningen på Hotell- och Restaurangprogrammet skulle ge dem och i hur stor grad de förväntningarna uppfylldes. Sekundärt syfte var att jämföra elevernas förväntade och upplevda kunskaper med Skolverkets programmål samt med de kompetenskrav som uttrycktes i en pilotstudie (UHR, 2007) som Utbildningsrådet för Hotell- och Restauranger har utfört om företagens behov av kompetens hos nyutexaminerade från Hotell- och Restaurangprogrammet. Jag valde en kvantitativ studieansats och använde en anonym gruppenkät bland elever på Hotell- och Restaurangprogrammet på två olika gymnasieskolor för att genomföra undersökningen. Tendenser i resultatet visade att eleverna på Hotell- och Restaurangprogrammet förväntade sig mest kunskaper inom områdena Bemötande och gästkommunikation, Rengöring och hygien, Matlagning i kall- och varmkök samt Servering. Eleverna förväntade sig inte mycket kunskap inom Datorkunskap och Internet samt Företagande och ekonomi. Uppfyllelsen av förväntningarna på kunskap tenderade att vara hög där förväntningarna var stora. Därför skulle det kanske vara värt för skolan att arbeta med att påverka elevernas förväntningar i positiv riktning och på så sätt höja motivationen inom områden med låga förväntningar. Konfrontation mellan tendenserna i undersökningsresultatet och Skolverkets programmål samt branschens kompetenskrav, indikerade att utbildningen skulle kunna fokusera något mer på kunskapsområdet Bemötande och gästkommunikation, Drycker och Organisering av festmåltider. Området Företagande och ekonomi borde få betydligt större vikt.</p>

Consumption of food away from home (FAFH) is widely believed to be a contributing factor to the current obesity crisis and other diet related problems in North America. At present, in Canada, a number of issues related to FAFH consumption such as the relationship between obesity and fast foods, trans-fats, sugar and sodium content of restaurant foods, and restaurant advertising for children are being widely discussed. In these discussions, it is apparent that the interrelationships between FAFH, nutrition and diet related diseases are complex. Therefore, there are significant gaps in our knowledge. In this study, a number of important research questions related to FAFH consumption were studied in order to provide a detailed understanding of FAFH purchase trends, nutrient demand trends, factors affecting these trends and to provide some idea of the possible effectiveness of proposed policy interventions in the area. In paper one of this study, a sample of Canadian FAFH purchases were analysed using a two stage demand model to examine the impact of industry advertising, households habit forming preferences and socio-demographic and economic variables. Given the unique method of restaurant categorization, results provide new and additional information of the impact of above variables in Canadian context. The second study examined the demand for selected nutrients in FAFH to understand factors affecting nutrient intake in FAFH foods focusing on chain restaurants. An innovative measure of nutrient content (nutrient density) was used in the analysis and study results provides interesting new information about nutrient consumption from chain restaurants in the FAFH market. The third study examined how some specific food industry changes in product formulations aimed at reducing trans-fatty acids (TFAs) could and have affected consumers overall diet quality and their demand for food away from home. This study provides some indications of effectiveness of the current trans-fat recommendations in Canada. In summary, this study is an empirical investigation of a number of questions related to Canadian FAFH consumption: What is the structure of the FAFH market in Canada? What are the households FAFH purchasing patterns? What is the impact of advertising and habit forming preferences and socio-economic and demographic factors on FAFH purchases? What are the nutrition profiles of the most popular menu items of chain restaurants? What are the factors affecting nutrient demand in FAFH foods? Would a specific food industry change in product formulation such as reducing TFAs have affect consumers overall diet quality and their demand for FAFH? In general, results from the three independent studies provide useful information to fill some of the gaps in our knowledge of FAFH consumption, especially on health and nutrition with implications for public policy. / Agricultural and Resource Economics

Obesity is a rapidly growing public health threat as well as an economic problem in the United States. The recent changes in eating habits, especially the relative increase of food away from home (FAFH) consumption over the last three decades raised the possibility of causal linkage between obesity and FAFH. This study confirms the positive, significant association between the body mass index and FAFH consumption in adults, consistent with previous findings in the economic and nutrition literature. This work goes a step further, however. We demonstrate FAFH consumption at quick-service restaurants has a significantly larger effect on body mass index than FAFH consumption at full-service restaurants. Further disaggregation of FAFH by meal occasion reveals that lunch consumed away from home has the largest positive effect on body mass index compared to other meal occasions (breakfast, dinner and snacks). Survey data with missing observations or latent variables are not rare phenomena. The missing value imputation methods are combined into two groups, contingent upon the existence or absence of an underlying explicit statistical model. Explicit modeling methods include unconditional mean value imputation, conditional mean and regression imputation, stochastic regression imputation, and multiple imputation. The methods based on implicit modeling include hot deck and cold deck imputation. In the second essay, we review imputation methods commonly used in the agricultural economics literature. Our analysis revealed strong preference of researchers for the regression imputation method. We consider several alternative (regression, mean and median) single imputation methods to impute and to append prices of foods consumed at home (foods commercially purchased and prepared from ingredients) from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) dietary intake data. We also demonstrate the superiority of regression imputation method compared to the mean and median imputation methods for commercially prepared foods. For ingredient foods, the results are ambiguous with no imputation method clearly outperforming the others.

The purpose with my study was primarily to illuminate the students' expectations on gained knowledge during their studies at the upper secondary school Hotel- and Restaurant program, and to what extent these expectations were fulfilled. Secondarily, the purpose was to compare the students' expected and perceived knowledge with the program goals set by the Swedish government and the knowledge requirements expressed in a pilot study made by the Education council of the Hotel and restaurant business (UHR, 2007).I chose a quantative approach and I used an anonymous group enquiry among students at the Hotel- and Restaurant program at two different upper secondary schools to carry out my study.Tendencies in the result suggested that the students at the Hotel- and Restaurant program expected high knowledge level within the competence areas of Guest reception and communication, Cleaning and hygiene, Cooking of cold and hot dishes and Waiting. The expectations were not big within the areas Computers and Internet and Business economics and management.Fulfillment of expected knowledge tended to be high within the areas where the expectations were big. It might therefore be a good investment for schools to work on the student expectations to increase motivation within the low expectation areas.A confrontation of the tendencies in the result with the program goals and the competence requirements expressed in the UHR study, suggested that the upper secondary Hotel- and Restaurant education might focus some more the areas of Guest reception and communication, Beverages and Organization of banquets. Business economics and management should be given much more weight. / Syftet med min undersökning var primärt att belysa elevernas förväntningar på vilken kunskap utbildningen på Hotell- och Restaurangprogrammet skulle ge dem och i hur stor grad de förväntningarna uppfylldes. Sekundärt syfte var att jämföra elevernas förväntade och upplevda kunskaper med Skolverkets programmål samt med de kompetenskrav som uttrycktes i en pilotstudie (UHR, 2007) som Utbildningsrådet för Hotell- och Restauranger har utfört om företagens behov av kompetens hos nyutexaminerade från Hotell- och Restaurangprogrammet. Jag valde en kvantitativ studieansats och använde en anonym gruppenkät bland elever på Hotell- och Restaurangprogrammet på två olika gymnasieskolor för att genomföra undersökningen. Tendenser i resultatet visade att eleverna på Hotell- och Restaurangprogrammet förväntade sig mest kunskaper inom områdena Bemötande och gästkommunikation, Rengöring och hygien, Matlagning i kall- och varmkök samt Servering. Eleverna förväntade sig inte mycket kunskap inom Datorkunskap och Internet samt Företagande och ekonomi. Uppfyllelsen av förväntningarna på kunskap tenderade att vara hög där förväntningarna var stora. Därför skulle det kanske vara värt för skolan att arbeta med att påverka elevernas förväntningar i positiv riktning och på så sätt höja motivationen inom områden med låga förväntningar. Konfrontation mellan tendenserna i undersökningsresultatet och Skolverkets programmål samt branschens kompetenskrav, indikerade att utbildningen skulle kunna fokusera något mer på kunskapsområdet Bemötande och gästkommunikation, Drycker och Organisering av festmåltider. Området Företagande och ekonomi borde få betydligt större vikt.

Title How do sensory cues and trust affect the customer experience?, A study on the relationships between sensory cues, trust and experience in the Swedish nightclub industry Author Miralem Hasanovic Tutor Soniya Billore Examiner Sarah Philipson Course Marketing Master Programme, Advanced, Spring 2013, Master thesis, 30 ETCS Keywords Experience, Trust, Sensory Marketing, Sensory Cues in Offering Experiences, Nightclubs, Five Senses, Swedish restaurant industry. Purpose Purpose is to investigate the relationships between sensory marketing, trust and experience in nightclubs. Theory Sensory cues in offering experiences, Trust, Experiences. Method Mixed method approach/ Sequenced method 14 observations 7 interviews with companies 102 answers in a survey Findings Visual cues affect the experience mostly positive. Audio cues affect the experience both positive and negative, depending on other aspects as the possibility to escape the loud sound. Touch cues affect the experience mostly negative, which is possible to alter through interior and design. Scent cues are not affecting the industry as for the moment and there is a big gap to fill in here for the industry. Taste cues seem not to matter as much as the other cues. Trust is inflicting experience through expectation and fulfillment of promise. There is a weak (or least enough) correlation of trust and positive experience in nightclubs. Violence does not affect trust considerably towards a nightclub