Final Project Video and Story

Link to Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTN3KNUftLg

“Marketing in the Market of Lodging”

Businesses all around the country are having to adapt to the fast paced marketing world that has made standing out from surrounding competitors almost impossible, especially for those in the lodging scene in Oxford, Mississippi.  

With all hotels and motels in Oxford Miss. having their Oxford Tourism and Economic Development Tax, created in 1983, increased by three percent each year, last year the hotel market brought in more than $22.5million in combined lodging revenue. This tax goes straight to the offices of Visit Oxford, a main hub that promotes marketing for tourists and attractions in Oxford.

Marketing strategies for businesses has become a main priority in the last couple years due to the fact that social media is the main resource used to connect with potential customers.

General Manger of The Graduate, Gerald Peralta has spent over sixteen years learning the ins and outs about what goes into marketing for hotels:

“So much of Oxford is a "word of mouth" or "social media" impact that we are aware of the success and draw of the hotel already,” said Peralta. “The Graduate strives to be the living room of the community, and we try and promote ourselves as a place for all to come - college students, hotel guests, local Oxionians.”

Marketing for hotels and motels takes on more of a public relations approach when it comes to having a connecting with their customers. But, every city is different with how information is processed by every day citizens. Every city has its own key aspects, benefits and implications, which all feed into how a businesses approach their marketing scheme.

“Marketing fills up the leases,” said John Castro, General Manager of Gather Oxford. “Without our name out on billboards, phones and special offers that attract customers, we wouldn’t exist.”

With that type of thinking every aspect of marketing comes into play when opening a new

off-campus student housing complex. That business must exhaust every avenue of communication they can get to make sure their business is well-known.

“Everyone is realizing how affective marketing can be,” said Virginia Kennedy, General Manager of The Domain in Oxford. “I am always stressing the progression of marketing. And some businesses lose focus of that and don’t succeed.”

An off campus housing complex that has not been able to keep up with the rapid pace of the marketing world, is the Hub. Last year they were fully booked by January and now, in May, they have only fifty percent of their rooms leased. The Hub either did not satisfy their customers or their efforts towards marketing did not meet the standards that other businesses set.

“We started offering anyone who came for a tour around the Hub, a $10 gift card, in hopes to attract more students and provide a greater incentive than what we already were,” said Marketing Coordinator Aleksandra Luba.

With social media making life move even faster than it already is, businesses must attempt to control that area in hopes to attract new customers and stay ahead of the marketing game. Not much is said for a business that does not make their name more like a brand name. A method that is taught at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, Miss..

With the constant generation of new marketing jobs increasing, so does the Marketing School at Ole Miss. Since 2011, the Integrated Marketing and Communicationsschool has taken in over a thousand new marketing student majors. It is proof that the marketing world is developing rapidly and it is a businesses job to keep up and stand out or be left out. 

Current Event 4/29 TUBMAN $20 BILL

The nation waits as the $20 bill will be changed from the face it currently holds being Andrew Jackson, our seventh president, too the abolitionist black women Harriet Tubman. 

Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew announced to the public of this change in the nations currency and how it would soon be inserted into action. It was his thoughts to possible change the face of the $10 bill, Alexander Hamilton, but that did not seem to fit at the time. 

"this remaking may well have captured a historical moment for multicultural, multiethnic and multiracial nation," said New York Times. "Moving continuously through the early years of a new century."

This raises memories on how once in our own American history black people were once forbidden from working and restricted life, even more so towards women. 

American people believe this is not suitable for how the American currency is a place to honor people of historical influence and do not believe Harriet Tubman portrayed that. Others would disagree and see Harriet Tubman has a women who stood up against what was the cruelest time in American history. 

Harriet Tubman is not the only black face that will be presented to the public in the near future. Others such as, Martin Luther King Jr., Marian Anderson and Sojourner Truth are all up for debate to be implemented into the currency in some fashion. 

More abolitionist are also being talked about such as, Eleanor Roosevelt and Susan B. Anthony, all whom devoted their lives to standing up for a cause that looked like it would never change. 

This change will change more than just the face of a bill, but will push more and more changes to happen and some might not be so welcoming. 

Current Event 4/22

Emergency forces are still at work in Houston, Texas recovering whatever is left from the 1,000 homes destroyed from flooding this month. 

Creeks and river beds continue to rise in the Cypress area of Houston, which is only resulting in more and more people having to leave their homes to reach safety. 

"More than 8.8 trillion gallons of water have fallen on Texas only this month alone," said CBS. 

That amount of water has resulted in many homes destroyed and many left helpless in Houston with no escape. More than 6,500 residents were without power for longer than a week this month only resulting in even more desperate attempts to get out. 

The death toll is also rising with how fast the rescue team works in finding the cars that have been found underwater in lower parts of the highways. 

The weather is to delivery another one to three inches more of water to the Cypress area over the next day. With most of the lightening gone from the area the power should be restored to most resident that are still able to enjoy its luxury. 

More than $5 billion of damage as already been accounted for and that number is only rising. 

current event 4/15

Search parties continue in Japan after a 7.0- magnitude earthquake hit late Thursday afternoon. 

The earthquake hit Kumamoto for about 20 seconds and devastated many buildings,  19 homes, two railways, and one hospital. It is said that not the magnitude of the earthquake caused so much disaster but it was the 6.2 miles of depth the earthquake reached that caused so much damage. 

With Japan sitting right on the "ring of fire" no one in Japan is surprised a earthquake hits again in Japan, but with over 9 people killed from the disaster everyone is helping with the search and rescue. 

The Japan Meteorological Agency was worried of a tsunami hitting, but soon lifted that danger after it died down miles off of the shores. 

'Many after shocks followed the 7.0 earthquake, but none that damaged anything more than it already was" a Japanese police officer said. 

Lucky no power plants were disturbed, which could have killed all the power in Japan making the rescuing and saving of lives nearly impossible. 

The last earthquake that hit Japan was not even a year ago and much larger than the one that hit at 9:26 p.m. last night. 

Search and rescue continues into many more hours and will hopefully not turn up anymore bodies that are deceased keeping the death count at only nine, but the searches will continue for many more days along with the rebuilding of the destruction that occurred as a result. 

Current event 4/8 "Mississippi's Religious Freedom Bill"

This past week the Mississippi lawmakers passed the bill that will possibly invite discrimination back into Mississippi. The "Protecting Freedom of Conscience from Government Discrimination Act" is always for businesses and restaurants, or any company, to refuse service to gays, blacks, or different religions if they don't want to. 

It is said that the bill, "allows state employees to refuse to issue same- sex-marriage licenses and protects private companies and religious groups from being punished for denying a range of services to LGBT people," NPR said. 

Governor Phil Bryant of Mississippi was urged to not sign the bill because people agreed with the fact that it would send Mississippi back many decades of progress and it could turn on the state very easy. 

On the other side, Georgia decided to not sign the bill for they were worried they would lose much of their income coming from movie productions that have become popular in Atlanta along with Coke Company. Even though the decision for Georgia was decided in a way that was more focused on the money than what they thought was morally right, Georgia still stood behind Mississippi before the signing in the hopes the Governor would not sign. 

In the years to come the nation will see if this bill destroys or grows the state and continues its path away from how the state was not too long ago.

Story #3 Virginia Kennedy

https://youtu.be/8UTj8v-OEt8

Current Event " Uneven Tides" 4/1

A drone flying over the melting glacier. 

NASA and other authorities are working on calculating how much time the West Antarctic ice sheet has before collapsing. 

This piece of ice, larger than the country of Mexico, is in risk of melting from the powerful global warming problem all us humans have to worry about. Much is said to happen within the next hundreds of years with more water melting and more showing up on human populated shores. 

“chances of surviving another 400 years in anything like its present form would appear to be remote." New York Times said. "Miami, New Orleans, London, Venice, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Sydney, Australia, are all just as vulnerable as New York, or more so.”

By 2500 the water is said to have risen more than 49 feet. This problem might not affect much of our lives today, but it is a problem that will be left for children born today. 

"The findings from Joughin and his colleagues, appearing in the journal Science, indicate that in some places, Antarctica's Thwaites Glacier is losing tens of feet, or several meters, of ice elevation every year," NBC News said. 

It has not been easy configuring the timeline for when and how this will happen. “These processes were measured against sea-level estimates from the Pliocene and Last Interglacial periods," FOX news said." and applied to future greenhouse gas emission scenarios.”

The cause of most of the melting of ice is the glaciers that are constantly increasing with flow and constantly growing deeper and wider. They are the cause of underground canals and a receding coastline, which is only making the process be more apparent.