The final project will be an individual assignment. Feel free to collaborate with other students, however, every student will have to turn in their own project consisting of their own work. If you collaborated on this project with other students please detail on the Title page who were your collaborators.
Project Description:
• Interview a Hotel General Manager or Head of Revenue Management and find their revenue strategy for their property.
• Explain in a8-9 page paper how the interviewee has come to make the decisions regarding the strategy (STAR reports, cold calling, internet searches) {8-9 pages will be of the Main Body, not the total length of the paper}.
• Who is their direct competition?
• How do they make decisions regarding pricing, overbooking, and closeouts?
Your paper should go into detail about:
• The value that the customer receives based on the price that they pay, and perceived benefit of staying in this property.
• What is the Average Daily Rate (ADR) for the property, average occupancy %, the distribution channels that the property uses, and their market segmentation mix (Transient, group, and special contract and negotiated rates)?
• What is the average Rack-Rate for this property and the usual discount that is given in season, versus out-of-season?
• You also must relate what you learn from the interview back to the book and back to journal articles that you find.
• You should also go into detail about the company, this information should be found on their website or in articles. I want to feel like I am learning something not only about their pricing but also about the company, the industry, and their competition.
It is understandable that some of this information will be proprietary and confidential so general information will be acceptable and they do not need to go into full details if they are not comfortable with that.
APA Style:
This paper must be in APA style. If it is not it will automatically lose 20%. Please follow the APA style guide located on the Purdue Website (https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/). If the paper is missing any one of these guidelines it will be marked incorrect. I do not want you to lose 15% for not having an abstract, or a title page, or a work cited page. Please if you have any questions ask me,I will be happy to answer any questions before the deadline.More information regarding APA style is listed under Grading.

Project Justification:
I am trying to get you to have an idea of how real life revenue controllers do their jobs and make money for the property. Also by going to properties that you may work for, or may want to work for and asking these questions might help get a foot into the door for an internship possibility. Also find out if the GM or RM would be interested in being a guest speaker this semester or in semesters in the future.
Deadline: April 23, 2016 11:59PM – The paper will not be accepted late!
Grading: The paper will be graded on 2 Rubrics.There is also semester long weekly APA assignment that should help you to prepare for this Assignment. The paper will be graded 20% on an APA style rubric and 80% on a Content Rubric. The weekly APA Assignment that consists of 14 1-4 Question quizzes that will be worth 2% on your final grade. The answers to the quizzes relate to many of the sections in the APA rubric so if you do well on these very simple quizzes you will have no problems with APA style on the project.

Rubric:
There are 2 Rubrics for this assignment as follows:

APA Rubric (20% of Paper Grade)
Criteria Proficient 100% Competent 50% Novice 0%
Title Page – APA Quiz #2 Correct format of title page. Title Page present, however contains picture or is improperly constructed. No Title Page
Running Head – APA Quiz #3 The running head (along with the page numbers) appears in the header of every page. Running head present, centered or right justified. Not in capital letters, no page number, not in Times New Roman 12. No Running Head
Abstract – APA Quiz #4 Single paragraph double-spaced, less than 250 words, concise introduction and overview of what will be covered in the paper. More than 250 words or less than 150 words. Does not give the reader an idea of what will be mentioned in the paper. No Abstract
Keywords – APA Quiz #5 Keywords listed under the abstract: Correctly formatted Keywords not in correct structure and/or do not relate to content. No Keywords
Font & Font Size 12 Point Times new Roman Anything other than 12 Point Times new Roman
Number of Pages – Located in syllabus and instructions for assignment 5-6 Pages Less than 5 Full pages Far too few pages to accurately complete assignment.
Use of Long Quotes – APA Quiz #6 Few, and correctly using long quotes Long quotes, not handled correctly. Multiple long quotes or compiling the interview in a Q&A part of the paper.
In-Text Citation – APA Quiz #5 Correclty using in-text citation Incorrectly citing information or not citing all information found in paper. No In-text citation
Reference List – APA Quiz #7 #9 Reference List Named anything other than Reference List No Reference List
Proper Paragraph Structure Properly indented and spaced paragraph structure. No indentation, and/or incorrect use of spaces and punctuation. Improper paragraph structure.

Final Paper Rubric (80% of Paper Grade)
Criteria Exceptional Quality 100% Good Quality 80% Average Quality 60% Poor Quality 0%
Spelling &Gramar 5% Please spell check. This is an easy 5% to gain or lose.
Quality of Writing 5% Perfect use of the written English language. Issues with the written English language but understandable. Poor use of the written English Language. Unintelligible
Layout of Paper 15% Paper is structured correctly with headers that break up sections. Paper lacks the structure of a College level assignment. The research paper has a large section of Q/A. The research paper is not a research paper but a Q/A of interview questions and responses.
Depth of Interview Question for GM or RM 25% Good interview using both questions provided and new questions from the interviewer. Interviewee questions with the stock questions in the assignment. Reader is unable to determine what the interview questions were. No interview conducted or the reader is left questioning what the paper was about.
Detail of paper and using articles to relate back to the subjectand how does what the hotel is doing relate to what other hotels are doing in the industry. 20% Journal articles, websites of the company, and sections from the book must be used to relate the to the interview. One or two articles with or without the text book used but the reader is left hoping to have more information. Only the book, or use of only websites to relate back with no articles that tie the information together. Company website or nothing at all in the Reference page of the paper.
Justification of why you chose this hotel/ restaurant/ cruise line… and why you chose this company instead of one of the millions of other hospitality companies 15% Be excited about this interview and convey it in the paper. Took the easy way but came up with an ok justification. You describe in the paper that you didn’t know a lot about the company until you started your interview. “Because this is where I work”
Amendment to Assignment:
Please use your creativity. If you want to interview a RM director of a Cruiseline, Airline, Logistics Company, Car Rental agency, Resort, or something else you may do so. I recommend a hotel because it should be the easiest to find information on and make contact with. I will not take any credit off of the project if you do something creative, as long as you are able to answer the majority of questions or be able to adjust them to fit another industry.
Help from the professor:
Please let me know in the next two weeks who you are interviewing and for what company (industry). I want to make sure that you are on the right path and will be able to get what you need accomplished. If you have major problems, come see me in my office or email me.
Final Project Discussion Board:
There is a Final Project Discussion Board that has been created. It will be available every week. If you have a question post it here. You most likely are not the only one with the same question.