DECA Hospitality and Tourism Vocabulary

Misrepresentation

When one party makes a false statement to a second party with the intention of making the second party behave a certain way.
Ex. Business falsifies records to convince bank to lend it money

Negligence

When business is not doing something necessary or required.
Ex. When hotel breaches the duty of care

Fraud

Deception purposely carried out to secure unfair or unlawful gain.
Ex. Providing inaccurate information on tax returns and money laundering

Exclusive Dealing

An illegal agreement that forbids customers from buying goods and services from competitors. Many jurisdictions consider this practice illegal when it restricts trade.

Price Discrimination

An illegal activity in which a business charges different customers different prices for similar amounts and types of products.

Full-line forcing

Occurs when a producer requires its intermediaries to carry an entire line of its products rather than one or a few of the items. Can be an illegal activity if it restrains trade and competition

Selective Distribution

A distribution strategy in which a producer sells a product through a limited number of middlemen in a geographic area

Operations Management

The process of planning, controlling, and monitoring the day-to-day activities required for continued business functioning.

Selling

Marketing function that involves determining client needs and wants and responding through planned, personalized communication that influences purchase decisions and enhances future business opportunities.

Information Management

The process of accessing, processing, maintaining, evaluating, and disseminating knowledge, facts, or data to assist business decision making

Pricing

Marketing function that involves determining and adjusting prices to maximize return and meet customers' perceptions of value.

Product/Service Management

The marketing function that involves obtaining, developing, maintaining, and improving a product or service mix in response to market opportunities

Production

The process or activity of producing goods and services

Mapping

Visual Method of note-taking that involves writing the main topic in a circle and writing supporting ideas on lines around the circle.

Cornell Method

Taking notes in two columns

Blind Carbon Copy (BCC)

Hides email addresses from the email's recipients

Place

Making sure that goods and/or services are available where customers need or want them. Can be a physical location or a site where a want or need is fulfilled.
Ex. Hotel building lodging facility on Interstate 95

Elastic Demand

When demand is elastic, consumers adjust demand for products based on price. Demand changes when prices change. Prices go up = consumers purchase less

Inelastic Demand

Demand for a good or service is constant, event if product's price changes

Complementary

Products that are usually together

Stages of Business Cycle

Business cycle involves fluctuating levels of economic activity ranging from expansion to contraction.
In periods of expansion, there is an increase in business growth, employment, and business and consumer spending.
In periods of contraction, business growth slows, unemployment rises, and consumer spending decreases.

Underemployment

Occurs when a worker is not working enough or is not fully using her/his skills and talents. Underemployment rate takes into account friction unemployment, downsizing, and technological unemployment.

Floating Exchange Rate

Determined by supply and demand. Changes depending on the market.

Pegged/Fixed Exchange Rate

Set by government and does not change based on market's fluctuations

Mutual Funds

Carries the advantage of professional management. Comes with a high price. High fees may cut into a mutual fund investor's returns. Mutual fund investors do not risk personal time and effort like entrepreneurs. Has high potential for return. No penalty for early withdrawal from mutual fund.

Accounts Receivable

Money that is owed to a business. They are an asset to the business, but they do not have a physical presence.

Petty cash-fund

A small amount of money that a business keeps on hand for inexpensive business purchases. By maintaining a petty-cash fund, a business can easily pay for things such as steps flowers, and coffee supplies without writing a check or going through regular purchasing procedures. Several factors go into determining amount of money that should be allocated to the petty-cash fund. Factors include average number and dollar amount of transactions that it expects during a certain time period.

Primary Information

New information collected for the purpose at hand.

Secondary Information/Data

Facts and figures that have been collected for purposes other than the project at hand.

Testimonial

Statement by an identified user of a product proclaiming the benefits received from use of the product

Tables

Sections of the database that contain specific categories or types of information about customers.
Ex. A table that contains contact information may include fields that store the customer's name, telephone number, email address, etc. Another table might contain information about the customer's purchasing history-products, quantities, and dates of purchase.

Pie Chart

Businesspeople often use a pie chart to compare the parts of whole concept such as market share of a particular industry or geographic location.

Flowchart

Presents a visual depiction of activities or processes in sequential order by integrating text in a graphic format.

Psychographic Segmentation

Involves dividing the market by consumers' lifestyles or personalities.
Ex. Health and fitness is a lifestyle factor

Demographic Segmentation

Divides market on the basis of its physical and social characteristics.
Ex. gender, education, age, and family life cycle.

Geographic Segmentation

Involves location factors such as physical location, climate, city size, etc.

Conversion Rate

Measures number of inquires that turn into sales expressed as a percentage.

Sample Plan

In marketing research, a sample plan is an outline for the sampling process that ensures that a truly representative sample of the population is selected in the most efficient way possible with the lowest potential for error.

Business Productivity

Amount of goods or services produced by a business from a set amount of resources.

Business Licenses

Documents that grant permission to operate a business

Business Trends

Tendencies and changes in the business world

Process Performance Management

Quality-control method that involves supervising business and manufacturing processes to ensure their quality and efficiency.

Gross Profit

A good indicator of how well a business is controlling its costs.

Semi-Variable Costs

Fixed until the business reaches a certain level of production; after that, they become variable.

Price Markups

Indicates the difference between total cost and selling price

Breakeven Point

Occurs when a company's total sales equal its total expenses.

Invoice

The formal, printed record of a sale that included all necessary information of a sales transaction.
Serves as a legal document or formal agreement in which one party takes possession of goods or services in exchange for payment within a certain time period.
Information includes the buyer, the seller, items purchased, quantities, prices, delivery date, credit, discount terms, etc.

Creative Destruction

Term coined by Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter, it describes how new goods and services can hurt existing products. This is one risk of innovation

Franchise

A contractual agreement between a parent company and a franchisee to distribute goods or services.

Strategical Alliance/Joint Venture

An agreement that involves two or more businesses entering into a relationship by combining complementary resources such as technology, skills, capital, or distribution channels for the benefit of all parties. The relationship is usually short-term for a single project/transaction.

Licensing

A business structure that requires the authorization or permission from an owner to another entity to use trademarked, copyrighted, or patented material for a specific activity, during a specific time period, for the profit of both parties.

Industries

-Hospitality industry: Provides services to people who are away from home.
-Recreation industry: A segment of the hospitality industry, provides services designed to provide rest, relaxation, and enjoyment.
-Entertainment businesses: Part of recreation industry. Includes movie theaters, concerts, and plays.
-Lodging industry: Consists of businesses that provide sleeping accommodations for travelers.
-Travel businesses: Provide transportation.
-Tourism industry: consists of businesses that promote travel for business and leisure.

Feasibility Study

Involves evaluating the target market's interest in the product, as well as production and marketing costs.

Product Extension

Involves adding a similar good or service to an existing product line or product category.

Product Bundling

Involves packaging two or more similar products together and selling them at a single price that is lower than if the customers purchase the items separately.

Brand Positioning

Branding strategy in which marketers create a certain image or impression of a brand as compared to those of competitors' brands.

Corporate Brand

All of the combined customer impressions and experiences associated with a particular company.

Short Message System/Service (SMS)

Technology that enables people to send text messages over cell phones.

Blog

Primary purpose of a corporate blog is to connect with company's target market in a more informal and personal way than through the corporate website. Blogs typically have articles podcasts, and videos about business-related topics that interest audience. Blogs should be reusable. Selling products is not primary purpose of blog.

"Search-friendly" URL

Businesses should strive to use an in-house classification for URLs by using clear, relevant keywords. Using applicable keywords in the URL is more likely to yield a higher placement in a search engine's results field when users want to find specific topics, articles, and authors.

Advertising Message

Color: tool used by advertisers use to create a certain mood.
Placement: The way in which the advertisement's elements are arranged on the page.
Reach: a quantitative measure of the number o different people in the target audience who are exposed at least once to an advertising message.
Frequency: quantitative measure of the average number of times a target consumer is exposed to an advertising message.

Value (artistic term)

In artistic terms, value is the degree of lightness or darkness on the surface of something such as an object in a drawing or photograph

Illustration

Graphic component of advertisement that visually ties headline and copy together. May include photographs, drawings, paintings, or a combination of media. Type of illustration has an impact on mood or tone of the advertisement.

Simulation

Imitation or an actual or plausible situation that enables trainees to practice their behavior and responses under certain circumstances. Often used for training purposes.

Word-of-mouth

(WOM) marketing involves customers communicating with others about satisfaction with a business. Occurs in person or online.

Publicity

Any non personal presentation of ideas, goods, or services that is not paid for by the company or individual that benefits from or is harmed by it.

Advergaming

Inclusion of a product, brand, or company in a video game for promotion

Cooperative advertising

When producers provide channel members with financial support to cover advertising expenses.

Template

Basic layout that developers use to create a web page. Provides visual consistency as visitors click through different sections of the website.

Hyperlink

Component of an electronic document that computer users click on to jump to another place within the document or into a different document.

Heat map

Color-coded graphical representation that shows marketers the ways in which visitors interact with the website

Server log

Purpose is to maintain a history of website page requests

Press kit

Purpose of press kit is to provide tools to obtain publicity through various media outlets. Should contain information about the business.

Product Acquisition

Involves location and purchasing goods for business use or for resale.

Institutional/Corporate Promotion

Type of promotion that aims to create a certain image in the eyes of consumers.

Quality assurance

Process that businesses use to prevent defective products from being produced

Competitive Analysis

Process of comparing a business's income statement with that of its competitors to see how it is doing by industry standards.

Retention rate

metric expressed as a percentage and indicates a business's ability to keep customers over a certain period of time

Accounting System

Consists of the methods and procedures used in consistently handling the business's financial information

Suggestion Selling

Sales technique in which the salesperson attempts to increase the customer's purchase by suggesting additional products to buy after the customer has made his original purchase decision

Up-selling

Sales technique in which salesperson suggests a higher priced product than the one that the customer originally requests

Online Reservation Systems

Enables consumers to purchase travel, tourism, and hospitality products directly with the service provider.

Router Software

Enables computer devices to access wireless Internet within a certain area.

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)

Involves storing an order's product information on a computer chip and then attaching it to the shipment's box, container, or pallet. When shipment arrives at business, warehouse personnel use computer scanners to receive the items.

Intranet

An intranet allows company's employees to access and share information with others within an organization

Horizontal Conflict

Occurs between businesses at the same level in the distribution channel. When two franchisees compete for some market, horizontal conflict occurs over territory

Vertical Conflict

Occurs between different levels of the same channel, such as between franchisee and its franchisor

Bar graphs

Used to show changes over time or to compare figures between different groups

Corporate Culture

Values and ideals that an organization encourages among its employees

Customer advocacy

Word-of-mouth promotion and referrals from a business's current customers to its potential customers

Touch Points

All the opportunities that businesses have to connect with customers and reinforce their brand value

Relationship buying

Customers today prefer relationship buying to shopping around. Customers want to find businesses they feel comfortable with and stick with them.

Time Utility

When products are available at the time they are desired

Form utility

Created when business alters or changes the shape or form of a product to make it more useful or satisfying for consumers

Place Utility

Exists when goods are services are available at the place where they are needed or wanted by customers

Possession Utility

Exists when ownership or a product is transferred from the seller to the person or business that will use the good or service.

Buying Power

Buying power is the amount of money available. If consumers do not have money to spend, they cannot buy products.

Equilibrium

Point at which the quantity supplied is equal to the quantity demanded.

Elasticity

An indication of how changes in price will affect changes in the amounts demanded and supplied

Utility

Product's ability to satisfy a customer's wants or needs