Establishments vary greatly in size and in the services they provide. Hotels and motels comprise the majority of establishments and tend to provide more services than other lodging places. There are five basic types of hotels – commercial, resort, residential, extended-stay, and casino. Larger properties offer a variety of services for their guests, including a range of restaurant and beverage service options – from coffee bars and lunch counters to cocktail lounges and formal fine-dining restaurants.

Some properties provide a variety of retail shops on the premises, such as gift boutiques, newsstands, drug and cosmetics counters, and barber and beauty shops. An increasing number of full-service hotels now offer guests access to laundry and valet services, swimming pools, and fitness centers or health spas.

Conventions and business meetings are major sources of revenue for hotels and motels that are specialized (commercial hotels) and have banquet rooms, exhibit halls, and spacious ballrooms to accommodate conventions, business meetings and wedding receptions.

Conference hotels are fully self-contained entities specifically designed for meetings. They provide physical fitness and recreational facilities for meeting attendees, in addition to state-of-the-art audiovisual and technical equipment, a business center, and banquet services.

Resort hotels and motels offer luxurious surroundings with a variety of recreational facilities, such as swimming pools, golf courses, tennis courts, game rooms, and health spas, as well as planned social activities and entertainment. Resorts typically are located in vacation destinations or near natural settings, such as mountains, the seashore, theme parks, or other attractions.

As a result, the business of many resorts fluctuates with the season. Some resort hotels and motels provide additional convention and conference facilities to encourage customers to combine business with pleasure. During the off season, many of these establishments solicit conventions, sales meetings, and incentive tours to fill their otherwise empty rooms; some resorts even close for the off-season.

Residential hotels provide living quarters for permanent and semi permanent residents. They combine the comfort of apartment living with the convenience of hotel services. Many have dining rooms and restaurants that also are open to residents and to the general public.

Extended-stay hotels combine features of a resort and a residential hotel. Typically, guests use these hotels for a minimum of 5 consecutive nights. These facilities usually provide rooms with fully equipped kitchens, entertainment systems, ironing boards and irons, office space with computer and telephone lines, fitness centers, and other amenities.

Casino hotels provide lodging in hotel facilities with a casino on the premises. The casino provides table wagering games and may include other gambling activities, such as slot machines and sports betting. Casino hotels generally offer a full range of services and amenities.

In addition to hotels and motels, bed-and-breakfast inns, recreational vehicle (RV) parks, campgrounds, and rooming and boarding houses provide lodging for overnight guests.

Bed-and-breakfast inns provide short-term lodging in private homes or small buildings converted for this purpose and are characterized by highly personalized service and inclusion of breakfast in the room rate. Their appeal is quaintness, with unusual service and decor.

RV parks and campgrounds cater to people who enjoy recreational camping at moderate prices. Some parks and campgrounds provide service stations, general stores, shower and toilet facilities, and coin-operated laundries. While some are designed for overnight travelers only, others are for vacationers who stay longer. Some camps provide accommodations, such as cabins and fixed campsites, and other amenities, such as food services, recreational facilities and equipment, and organized recreational activities. Examples of these overnight camps include children’s camps, family vacation camps, hunting and fishing camps, and outdoor adventure retreats that offer trail riding, white-water rafting, hiking, fishing, game hunting, and similar activities.

Other short-term lodging facilities in this industry include guesthouses, or small cottages located on the same property as a main residence, and youth hostels – dormitory-style hotels with few frills, occupied mainly by students traveling on limited budgets. Also included are rooming and boarding houses, such as fraternity houses, sorority houses, off-campus dormitories, and workers’ camps. These establishments provide temporary or longer term accommodations that may serve as a principal residence for the period of occupancy. These establishments also may provide services such as housekeeping, meals, and laundry services.

Increased competition among establishments in this industry has spurred many independently owned and operated hotels and other lodging places to join national or international reservation systems, which allow travelers to make multiple reservations for lodging, airlines, and car rentals with one telephone call. Nearly all hotel chains operate online reservation systems through the Internet.

Hotel operations are becoming diverse and complex, but all positions require employees to maintain a customer-service orientation. Hoteliers recognize the importance of personal service and attention to guests; so they look for persons with positive personality traits and good communication skills when filling many guest services positions, such as desk clerk and host and hostess positions. Many hotel managers place a greater emphasis on customer service skills while providing specialized training in important skill areas, such as computer technology and software.

Although the skills and experience needed by workers in this industry depend on the specific occupation, most entry-level jobs require little or no previous training. Basic tasks usually can be learned in a short time. Almost all workers in the hotel and other accommodations industry undergo on-the-job training, which usually is provided under the supervision of an experienced employee or manager. Some large chain operations have formal training sessions for new employees.

Many hotels fill first-level manager positions by promoting administrative support and service workers – particularly those with good communication skills, a solid educational background, tact and loyalty. People with these qualities still advance to manager jobs but, more recently, lodging chains have primarily been hiring persons with four-year college degrees in the liberal arts or other fields and starting them in trainee or junior management positions.

So if you like Yoga, then you can exercise gentle yoga with caring and experienced teachers in heavenly settings, benefit you can take guided sort walks in unspoilt countryside, or if you feel like being pampered, then there are a strain of different holistic therapy holidays, where you can certainly heal yourself and relax in the lovely surroundings.

Another traditional art that has become trendy in France is Tai Chi, which is all about fitness and therapy using your own home body energy, and with course and keen breaks in masses of towns and villages throughout this scenic country, you could end with feelings of wellbeing and middle dilution you never knew you had!

Also, we all know that France is a country proud of its good food and good lavender to accompany it, and what better place could you go to for a cooking festival. So for those of you who are into erudition more about French cooking delights, there are cooking courses open in most areas of France, where you can learn to steam some of their traditional dishes, while enjoying the pleasures of tasting the native gourmand food from top chefs right through from pate to grilled fish and deserts that look too lovely to obsess!

Nevertheless a cooking feast in France is not just about being in the kitchen, the idea of these courses is to get you out and about by experiencing the society of the zone, take tours and visiting the community markets, so that you can explore their delicacies, enabling you to form the great meals for incredible dining experiences that will be a delight to your family and contacts when back home.

Of course, lets not overlook about the many lavender tours, which is also another very common activity festival and the vast collections of vineyards can make for a truly educational and worthwhile experience, positive you get to experience the different types of wines and end aware precisely what to look for when shopping back home.

There is no disbelief about it, that France is the best destination for lavender tasting and although Bordeaux has forever been the most common place to stopover, there are many other areas such as Burgundy and the Champagne Ardenne district, and after you have walked around an estate on a hot summer’s day, then ingoing the cellars to cool down while experimenting with different wines can be an experience you will never forget. Nevertheless the great thing about a plum tasting feast, is that you get skilled opinion on tours, so you can impress your friends with your expertise when you get back home for those pleasurable dusk dinners!

If you have thought about making your own pots and jumble but do not know where to establish, then perhaps a stoneware course is just for you. Gaining inspiration from your surroundings, you pioneer by education how to make and then adorn tons of stuff from vases to plates so that you can take your new found talents and facility of art home with you as a reminder of your activity festival in France.

Limousin county is legendary for its stoneware and the museum in Limoges can afford more inspiration than most would get in a time, but there are numerous other areas in France that bestow ceramics courses.

Almost as old as time itself, dirt is a traditional cunning and what could be better than having a ceramics opening in an old restored chateau or hangar, so you can enjoy erudition the traditional methods of moulding wet earth, running the potter’s turn, firing the clay and then ultimate off your wonderful pots, and by the end of your holiday you will be able to cause home with you the fallout of your artistic feel from the skills you have educated.

Everyone knows that France is also legendary for its artists and, wherever you go, you will always boil someone sketching or painting, so you will find numerous doodle and painting holidays vacant, which are set in the most beautiful countryside settings, where you can learn new techniques to paint and draw or just brush up on the skills you already have.

Many of these will incorporate trips to museums and galleries along with tutorials, but instead than just being wedged in a studio, the accent is put on leisure and pleasure by getting out and about in the area, so that you can experience a category of different scenarios from landscape painting to the regional architecture in your area, which can only allow the nascent dancer to experiment in areas they may not have considered before, even using different materials, so you can have a holiday satiated of enjoyment and inspiration.

With a lot of courses, they are more than gleefully to cater for individuals or for small groups, and alter in duration from a weekend exceed through to an inclusive week, and of course, these types of activity holidays are untaken for all levels of experience and while you tour and learn by day, each sundown you can sit down to gastronomic delights, superior wines and interesting conversation with like-minde people.

Read more on Glencoe News

BEIRUT, Lebanon, Feb 6 2008

The year 2008 has already been grim for most Lebanese businesses: Struggles with the nation’s permanent protest movement, security problems, a brief war in a Palestinian refugee camp and sporadic bombings have brought the nation to its knees.

Most recently a bomb tore through the bustling Chevrolet area on the outskirts of Beirut on Jan. 25, killing Captain Wissam Eid from the Internal Security Forces.

As the political situation tips further in the direction of widespread insecurity, however, Lebanese businesses around the country are clinging to the motto, “the show must go on.” Expansion seems to be the word on the street in Beirut, no matter what the uncertain future may hold.

ABC, a major department store and mall with seven outlets, two main flagship stores and a staff of more than 1,000 is currently revamping one of its main branches in Dbayeh.

“In March, we are also launching a new section extending over an entire floor of 8,000 square meters dedicated to children, dubbed Kidsville. It will also include a 500 square meter playground, an array of kids’ accessories and a coffee shop, La Mie Doree,” said Robert Fadel, ABC’s general manager. A second big store in the Ashrafieh suburb of Beirut is adding an extension for a playground that will fill an expanse of 800 square meters.

The Johnny R. Saade group is also jumping on the expansion bandwagon. Its travel and tourism arm, Wild Discovery, will be setting up shop in Kaslik in northeast Lebanon in a few months.

“We decided to push forward with the opening of new branches in Lebanon despite the prevailing situation, following the simple strategy that one has to invest and position oneself in times of relative crisis to prepare for the inevitable economic and political recovery that can be foreseen,” said Sandro Saade, one of company’s owners.

“This opening is also justified by a strategic objective to cover the northern Beirut area, where there is a demand for high-quality travel services.”

The company’s real estate arm boasts a $30 million residential project sprawling over 18,000 square meters in one of Beirut’s posh suburbs. In addition, the group is developing a winery in Bekaa Valley, near the villages of Kefraya and Tell-Denoub, covering a 50-hectare swath of land. The project is estimated at $25 million and will employ 50 people, excluding seasonal workers.

“The Lebanon venture will also integrate two other complementary projects, namely a wine museum and a boutique hotel, or ‘h”tel de charme’” with 30 to 35 rooms, said Karim Saade, another company owner.

It is not just big names that are taking a leap of faith into the murky Lebanese waters.

Nehme Lebbos, founder of Iloubnan, a news portal for Lebanon, left his home country in 1991 and worked as an IT consultant for 12 years in France before coming back.

“I wanted to come back ever since I left. I started IIoubnan in March 2005 with the help of my wife, a French journalist,” Lebbos said. “It is a Web magazine dovetailed with an e-commerce wing.”

The young entrepreneur has poured all his savings into this venture, relying on a bank loan, as well. The company’s recent success has allowed for an increase in operations, with four journalists employed on a full-time basis and a network of 20 freelance journalists around the world.

A shared vision of Lebanon seems to cement together the diverse business figures. “Lebanon is our homeland and we believe in our country,” Fadel said. On the other hand, Lebbos is conscious of the risks he might incur but is nonetheless determined to promote change in his home country.

Although most companies are investing in Lebanon, many have also looked to taking their business abroad. ABC will be opening in Jordan in March. “The company will bring to the Jordanian market a spirit of Lebanon, and aims at becoming a leading and trendy shopping destination,” Fadel said.

Similarly, the Saade brothers are relying on an international network of agencies for their tourism activity as well as launching a new winery in neighboring Syria. The group is trying to counter the negative business environment by highlighting the quality of its services. And so Wild Discovery is investing in an in-house sales training program expected to enhance its team’s knowledge and technical skills.

For most entrepreneurs, the essential rationale linking their projects is endorsing Lebanon as a brand in the region. Lebbos believes that this cannot be done without the help of young Lebanese people. “They need to travel, study abroad, graduate and experience foreign countries,” he said, and “then come back and invest in Lebanon.”

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