Journals Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Journals - Essay Example It is presently one of the strongest in the union and he was proud to discuss that France’s GDP, which is just under 3 trillion USD is rather impressive. After all, with America’s recent economic crisis I think it is important to listen to what other people think in other countries whose economies are improving. I, also, asked him about the exchange rate for monies. I will spend a week in France it might be important to understand better the value of currency. Apparently 1 American dollar is equal to 1 Euro, however, its value in relation to the dollar is about 0.75. Otherwise our in-flight discussion was about every day things, museums, sight-seeing, and the like. I am very exciting about this opportunity and I look forward to everything I may learn and experience along the way. During the duration of this week prior to the classes starting I hope to spend time sigh-seeing, of course, after all, I will be in Paris, France. I am very excited to visit the Louvre, see the Eifel Tower, and the Notre dame Cathedral; at least I hope I have time to take in as much as the place has to offer. Interesting fun fact that I learned about Paris on my trip. Paris was not the original name for the famous city. It was original called, in Latin, â€Å"Lutentia Parisiorium.† Lutentia is, essentially he word for mud and the Celtic peoples who resided there were call Parsii; therefore the original name of one of the world’s most beautiful and romantic city was â€Å"the mud city of the Parisii;† this, I thought, was rather interesting and a little amusing. I hope to, also spend some time understanding a little bit about the Czech Republic, before I arrive there. I will be spending a lot of time there and I want to be prepared and educated before I arrive there. One thing that I already took the time to investigate is that, when I told people that I was going to the Czech Republic, how many people still believe that the area is still called Czecho slovakia. The region formerly known as Czechoslovakia split into the two independent countries of Slovakia and the Czech Republic 20 years ago in 1993. Entry 2-May 27 2013 It was time to leave France, which was a wonderful experience overall, behind and head to Prague in the Czech Republic. Prague has the feel of being aged and still has architecture that still stands. In fact, it is often used as an ideal location for period, or historical, films because it still has areas that still have that â€Å"old world feel.† Unlike many other countries during WWII, Prague did not resist Hitler and he did little damage, so many of the buildings have withstood the test of time, I have had the opportunity to speak to several people on the trip over. There was one man who was very friendly and was eager to fill me in on the history of his land. It is definitely a city that has survived a great deal of war, upheaval, along with the transition between communism and capitalism. There was an other, a woman, who was actually quite knowledgeable about the kinds of questions that I thought were important to ask. She explained that the population of the Czech Republic is around 10.5 million people and 1/10 of that is located in the capitol, Prague. There economy is quite diversified and is based in metal works, machine parts, automobiles, beer, foods, and electronics. They have low unemployment rates and promising balancing of inflation. They did suffer a minor recession back in the late 90s because of

Business Transformation of Moevenpick Hotels and Resorts using VRINE, Essay

Business Transformation of Moevenpick Hotels and Resorts using VRINE, CAGE and Corporate Entity (Diversification) Frameworks - Essay Example MÃ ¶venpick Hotels and Resorts AG has focused on expanding into its traditional regions of Europe, Africa, Middle East and Asia. Such diversified presence in various regions of the world therefore indicates that it has been able to successfully expand in different markets. In this paper I will be concentrating on the MÃ ¶venpick Hotels and Resorts AG to seek the possibility of transforming the company using the VRINE model, CAGE as well as Corporate Entity (Diversification) models for better opportunities and higher market share. MÃ ¶venpick Hotels and Resorts AG manages 70 hotels of a total of 17,646 rooms in 24 countries in the market of upscale business hotels, holiday resorts and residences. Business hotels are 57% of the company’s managed hotels; resorts are 32% of the company’s managed hotels and 11% cruises. MÃ ¶venpick Hotels and Resorts AG has five regional offices in; Zurich acting as the corporate office for MÃ ¶venpick Hotels and Resorts AG and managing the region of Europe, Thailand, managing the region of Asia Pacific, United Arab Emirates, managing the region of the Middle East and India, Shanghai, Managing the region of China and Cairo, Managing the region of Africa. It is an analytical framework suggesting that an organization with resources and capabilities which are Valuable, Rare, Inimitable, Non-substitutable and Exploitable will gain a competitive advantage in the market. (Quizlet, 2012). It is however, critical to understand what actually resources and capabilities are and how they can actually provide a firm its overall competitive advantage over other firms in the industry. Barney (Cited in Peng and South-Western, 2008:3) defined the resources as ‘The tangible and intangible assets a firm uses to choose and implement its strategies’ while capability is a firm’s ability to make use of its resources in a highly productive way. (Santiago, 2003) Resources can be either tangible such as land and