hotels articles

Hotel/motel construction activity got out of the gate fast last year, but by mid-year was spent and limped home. After four consecutive years of strong double-digit increases, the hotel sector did manage to grow at a healthy rate again during 1999, but now it looks to be in for several years of spending declines.

As recently as May, year-over-year growth was 25 percent higher. By October 1999, however, activity had faded to the point where it was less than 17 percent its year-earlier total. For 1998, construction spending increased by 15.6 percent, while 1997 was up by 18.2

Designed to track boarding kennel customers and pets, iMagic Kennel Reservation provides instant access to kennel bookings with dual calendaring system that eliminates double-bookings. Software can accept bookings over Internet, identify peak times, and keep track of referrals. Each time reservation is made, facility status is updated, and customer’s information is added to kennel database. It also tracks payments and automatically prints receipts.

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iMagic Software has released iMagic Kennel Reservation, a Windows application that makes it easy to track your boarding kennel’s customers and pets. By simplifying the kennel booking process, iMagic Kennel Reservation reduces paperwork and saves time and money.

iMagic Kennel Reservation gives you instant access to your kennel bookings, making it easy to respond to telephone inquiries from customers and prospects. The program’s intuitive interface and dual calendaring system make it impossible to double-book kennels. There’s never a reason to hunt for information about your customers or your reservations Each time you make a reservation, the facility status is updated and the customer’s information is added to your kennel database. Your customers can even make bookings for their dog or cat over the Internet.

Installing the program is quick and easy. Simply use the Configuration Wizard to get started, and you can begin taking reservations immediately.

iMagic Kennel Reservation lets you track individual customers, identify peak times, and keep track of referrals. The program tracks payments, and automatically prints receipts for your customers. You can even export your data to your favorite spreadsheet.

Without the need for an expensive Customer Relationship Management (CRM) program, iMagic Kennel Reservation turns your client database into a valuable marketing tool. It’s easy to create personalized letters and mailmerge them into your favorite word processor or email program, and send special offers to your customers - or to their pets.

Whether you’re a dog and cat kennel owner who needs to automate the reservation process, a pet grooming proprietor who wants to get out from under the paperwork of a manual tracking system, or a veterinarian who needs to keep careful track of each patient’s boarding history, iMagic Kennel Reservation has the tools that you need.

iMagic Kennel Reservation runs under Windows 95/98/Me/NT4/2000/XP. Prices begin at $199(US). It may be purchased securely online at http://www.imagicsoft.com. iMagic Kennel Reservation comes with a three month no-quibble money back guarantee. You can download a free, 10-use evaluation version of iMagic Kennel Reservation from the same web address. For more information, contact iMagic Software, 7 Acorn Close, Forrestfield, WA 6058, Australia Email: CustomerCare@iMagicSoft.com Internet: http://www.imagicsoft.com/.

About iMagic Software:

Since 1988, iMagic Software has been developing and marketing Windows business software. In addition to iMagic Kennel Reservation, the company also offers iMagic Hotel Reservation, a Windows application that makes it easy to accept and manage reservations and guests for your bed-and-breakfast, small hotel, motel, or guest house; iMagic Restaurant, a program that makes it easy to manage restaurant reservations, maintain a customer database, and track referrals;

iMagic Inventory, an application that manages inventory, creates invoices, maintains a client database, creates picking lists and receipts, maintains inventory balances, and reorders stock; iMagic Timetable Master, an application that makes it simple for school and college administrators and teachers to create timetables; and iMagic Marina Reservation, an application that helps you manage your marina or dock.

The Byron City Council began the new year by dealing with organizational details and routine business.

Here are highlights of Monday’s meeting:

A vote of 3-2 to re-elect Michael Chidester as mayor pro-tem. Councilwomen Sandra Walker and Mary Powell voted against the choice after Walker made a motion, and Powell a second, to elect newcomer Jeff Ervin to the post. Councilman Ervin said he didn’t feel comfortable taking on the position and withdrew his name. Mayor Larry Collins break a 2-2 tie since Chidester abstained from the vote.

A vote of 4-1 to reappoint Chidester to the Downtown Development Authority. Walker opposed the appointment.

“No one should stay on a committee four years. It should be rotated every two years,” Walker said after Chidester asked her to state her reasoning for voting against his appointment.

Coming to Charlotte in 2006: Higher hotel room rates?

The Greater Charlotte Hospitality and Tourism Alliance, which represents hotels, restaurants and related businesses, says one of its goals for the year is to raise average daily room rates by $10 to $75.

In addition to boosting bottom lines, a rate increase would increase the county’s hotel/motel tax revenues, which support tourism-related projects

Talk about pressure.

Imagine planning events with elaborate food, drink and entertainment for 2,500 people who are event planners themselves, ready to notice every detail and flaw. And to top it off, they have the power to send tens of millions of dollars of convention business to Charlotte — or steer it away.

The responsibility for wowing the members of Meeting Professionals International, a leading professional trade group of meeting planners, fell on Jeff Hewitt, senior director of sales for Visit Charlotte.

Hewitt, wearing a Carolina blue sweater vest and Carolina Panthers pin along with his nametag Sunday afternoon, twitched visibly when asked how he was handling the responsibility. “What pressure?” he said with a shaky laugh.

Later, he added: “This is probably the toughest crowd in the business

Since December, the owners of Bake and Cake, a Myrtle Beach dessert and pastry company, and Surfside Bakery, a Surfside Beach bread company, have been pooling their resources.

But don’t think corporate merger. Think kissing cousins.

Both companies focus on delivering goods to Grand Strand restaurants and now informally pool their resources to expand their service. Lee Zulanch of Surfside Bakery delivers freshly made bagels, breads and rolls to clients as diverse as the House of Blues and Bi-Lo supermarkets.

Bake and Cake is headed by the husband-and-wife team of Michael and Petra Jerabek. The two prepare and deliver cakes, pies, pastries and cookies for a multitude of area restaurants. Both companies also do custom work for their customers and adjust to customer needs quickly.

The owners of the two shops met at an American Culinary Federation meeting in December, shared a booth at last week’s

Jerry Gist of Biloxi relished his beach bum status.

“Jerry was a strong person, but a real gentle person at the same time,” his friend and former co-worker John Porter said. “He was slow to get mad, but if you made him mad, you better get out of the way.”

Gist, in his late 40s, frequently wore a do-rag and a walrus-style handlebar mustache. He worked at Famous Joe’s Oyster Bar in Biloxi, preparing oysters and doing whatever needed to be done.

A few random thoughts about recent events in and not in the news:

Anyone else find it strange that S.C. Superintendent Inez Tenenbaum has made it a priority to figure out what percentage of the state’s students graduate, this in the final year of a second consecutive term at the helm of our public schools?

She has spent a lot of time telling us about the progress we’ve made, but is there a more important measure than graduation? She recently said we will know in four years just how many of our students graduate. Why wasn’t this a priority during her first year in office?

The Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce wants to increase the number of annual tourists by about 42 percent to top that magical 20 million mark. Why? Because the 14 million that come now aren’t enough to provide business for all

Think lawmakers resolved the switch to free pour? Not exactly.

Plenty of questions have come up as restaurant owners and bartenders change from minibottles to regular-sized bottles that all states except South Carolina have used for years. The law allowing those bigger bottles in the Palmetto State took effect Jan. 1.

Since that ceremonious cracking of the big bottles New Year’s Day, some places are still trying to figure out how to deal with things minibottles made easy: measuring the alcohol for each drink, pricing and how to keep track of the inventory.

Some bars, especially locally owned places, still are trying to decide whether to switch at all. Most national restaurants with a presence here rolled out big bottles as soon as they could. They have experience in other free-pour states that came in handy.

Joseph Campbell loved music.

“He liked Kid Rock and most rock ‘n’ roll,” said Edward Goswick of the 48-year-old day laborer who worked through Labor Finders.

“He was a painter,” said Goswick, who rode to work at the University of Southern Mississippi, Long Beach campus, with Campbell in the weeks before Katrina. “He was a laid-back, free spirit. Didn’t a whole lot get to him. For the last two or three months he kept saying he wanted to go back to Tennessee, where he was from.”