Skip Williams take his years of experience in the spa business and writes about successful spa management, presented in the form of a page turning story of fiction in this exciting and instructive novel. Through this journey, the characters as well as the reader learn about themselves and the principles of creating and running a successful spa.

Do you think you have a good idea for a business? A really good idea - something that has never been done before? Do you imagine that, if you could just get that idea of yours off the ground, it would really take off? And you just might become the next Bill Gates, Founder of Microsoft, or Michael Dell of Dell Computers or Howard Schultz, the driving force behind Starbucks? If you think you have a really good idea for a business - but you don't have enough money of your own to get it off the ground -and you think you are going to launch it with someone else's money- you are in exactly the same situation that Alan Stransman was in back in the summer of 2004. Before you do anything - read Don't Let Your Dream Business Turn Into A Nightmare - a heartbreaking and hilarious account of one man's pursuit of a dream. Don't let Your Dream Business Turn Into A Nightmare: Second Edition is a rarity - a business book that actually tells you what it is really like to start a business - if you don't have enough money of your own, have no idea how to write a business plan and have no experience running a business. In an era of "Just Do It," this book tells you what not to do - unless you want to see your dream business -and your life - turn into a nightmare.

Health and Wellness Tourism takes an innovative look at this rapidly growing sector of today¿s thriving tourism industry. This book examines the range of motivations that drive this diverse sector of tourists, the products that are being developed to meet their needs and the management implications of these developments. A wide range of international case studies illustrate the multiple aspects of the industry and new and emerging trends including spas, medical wellness, life-coaching, meditation, festivals, pilgrimage and yoga retreats. The authors also evaluate marketing and promotional strategies and assess operational and management issues in the context of health and wellness tourism. This text includes a number of features to reinforce theory for advanced students of hospitality, leisure and tourism and related disciplines.

• Spa services and the development of the spa business from its historical beginnings to the size of the market today. • Business development and planning, spa operations and business models. • Spa products and technologies, retailing and the application of branding and marketing strategies. • Infrastructure, design and environmental issues including sustainability and social and environmental benchmarking. • Human resources issues from education and training to professional and regulatory issues and professional and corporate ethics and values.

Why do some privatisations apparently fail to produce expected positive results? Economic theory tells us that privatisation should improve efficiency, but this book, originally published in 1998, suggests that political bargaining in the process of privatisation works against the results we expect to achieve. To gain a better understanding of what privatisation is really about, power at a firm level needs to be understood. Privatisation is a gradually unfolding, evolutionary process, often with defective corporate governance. Politicking can take priority over performance, with the result that efficiency is ignored and profitability is affected. This is a comprehensive book on privatisation which focuses on micro-level behavioural issues and it uses exceptionally rich case evidence to illustrate that privatisation is more about politics than performance.

Read The Whole Series! Hotel Llama is the third anthology book in Larry Mogelonsky's series following Are You an Ostrich or a Llama? (2012) and Llamas Rule (2013). Together, they give a detailed picture of the present hotel business landscape, outlining how to best navigate new technological issues shaping our industry in addition to the need for a perpetual commitment to exceptional service. All three books draw from Larry's extensive experience in the field as well as the prudence of other senior managers and corporate executives active in the hospitality industry. Offering creative and effective solutions to today's problems, this collection will give you the tools you need to thrive in the modern hotel world. The Llama Digital Educational Program In tandem with the publishing of this book, Larry Mogelonsky has created an online educational program for hoteliers to sharpen their skill sets. Entitled Llama Digital, this interactive web portal allows executives, managers, staff members and hospitality students to access all the articles from the three books in the series. Attached to each article are several complex questions designed to give a more detailed analysis of the issues through the form of written responses so that hoteliers will improve their writing proficiency in addition to honing their managerial skills. To learn more about the Llama Digital educational program and how it can enhance your skillset in the hospitality field, go to www.lmadigital.ca. Why You Need This Book The hotel world is evolving. The proliferation of new mobile technologies, online travel agencies, social media and third-party review websites represent four great disruptors for any hotelier's business. And these are just the tip of the iceberg. Customer behavior is changing too rapidly for traditional hospitality marketing and operations textbooks to keep up. The modern traveler is highly intelligent and incredibly discerning when it comes to hotel purchases. In order to understand this consumer revolution, you must arm yourself with the latest resources. Enter Hotel Llama, the third book in the series written to give hoteliers the best tools in their arsenal to prosper in these changing times. This is not an introductory textbook on the hospitality industry, but rather a compilation of selected topics that highlight both modern success stories as well as the blunders to avoid. This book will strengthen your management skills by explaining many of the sales, marketing, branding, technological and psychological principles at work behind such contemporary facets of hotel operations as proper website design, channel distribution and emerging technology applications in addition to the more traditional aspects like onsite amenities, guestroom features, F&B, housekeeping and the front desk. Above all, it is stressed that the success of a property - even with all that has changed in recent years - nonetheless depends on the relationship a hotel fosters with its guests. This is the hotelier's guidebook that recognizes future developments while celebrating the past.