Lifelong learning in restaurant business

Lifelong learning is the reality in all successful service industries. In the field of the hotel and tourism industry, it is very important to implement this concept. That will assure to achieve high level of quality - to be competitive on the market, and as feedback to get a big number of satisfied guests. There are different issues to discuss for the concept of lifelong learning. One of the most important thing is the need and interest for permanent education from both sides: employee and employer. The other issue is: according to law who is competent to organize and offer different forms of lifelong learning; who will recognize the certificate and/or diploma!? Financial aspect has big influence as well: who will cover the expences for any kind of education for already employed people. Methods and techniques for lifelong learning varry according to target group, topic, time, department in the hospitality property etc. Training is very popular method for permanent education. In general there are two basic types of training: the one-on-one training method and group training. Much of the training in restaurant business is done individually. Most one-on-one training is conducted by implementation of the following techniques: buddy system, cross-training,computer training and video. There are many different techniques that can be used in group training: classroom, lecture, demonstration, role-playing, games, professional trainers. In some countries, very popular is the concept of service learning

QUALITY OF THE TOURIST PRODUCT IN THE FUNCTION OF ATTRACTING TOURIST VISITORS

Quality is a necessary condition for the success of any business. Achieving this goal is done by offering a tourist product at a price that contains both the value of the tourist and the profit for a tourist organization.Quality control, quality assurance, quality circles and total quality management (TQM) are some of the approaches that managed to maintain the attention and interest of the business leaders, given the need of the tourist organizations for constant adaptation to the changes in the environment.Standardization is the first step towards defining and achieving the quality of workflow in the organization. The mutual relationship between quality, standards and specifications will give the correct definition of the quality system in the tourist organization.Quality is not random. Quality is created and promoted. Effective and efficient quality management is a prerequisite for constant improvement of operations. The quality of products, services and processes is the goal towards which people are aspiring since the earliest times. Management quality control was regulated with printed specifications for materials, processes, finished products and tests as well as with measurement, measuring instruments and test laboratories.In order to maintain a balance, managers in the production facilities formed a central inspection department headed by a chief inspector. In the twentieth century, huge production of goods and services was achieved, both in scale and complexity.The companies have formed departments called: quality control department, quality assurance department, etc. The head of this department was named "quality manager".The centralized activity in the quality department has led to the assertion that the achievement of quality is the responsibility of the quality department, not all employees of the company. The central activity of this department was to limit the risk of delivering a defective product to the consumer.Keywords: tourism, quality, tourist consumers, TQM, market, tourist product, strategy, standardization etc

Segmentation, positioning and branding of the tourist product of Ohrid

On today’s more and more demanding tourist market, it is of great importance for all involved parties to acknowledge the fact that consumers are more informed than ever before and that they approach the market on a different level. Having this in mind, it is needed to state that the segmentation, the positioning and the branding are one of the key ingredients in this process. Because of this fact, the paper deals with what segmentation is and how it can help these involved parties in one major tourist city in the Republic of Macedonia to better understand these processes and to implement them onto the market itself. This paper helps with the input of knowing better the different approaches on the side of the segmentation, the main specifics of the positioning and gives hints regarding the branding of Ohrid as a tourist destination. Keywords: tourism, segmentation, positioning, branding, Ohrid