Текст 2: TYPES OF ACCOMMODATION The hotels and catering industry is often treated separately from the tourist industry, and certainly the training for both is very distinct. Its primary function is to provide tourists with accommodation and, to a lesser degree, food. So it is often referred to as the hospitality industry. The hospitality, tourism and leisure industries have become increasingly important in terms of economies and employment throughout the world.
Travel and hotels have always been closely related. In Europe and America, innsand tavernswere spaced along the roads at the distance a horse could travel in a day. The traveller usually had to share his bed with another person, and as many as four other persons in some remote areas. The old-fashioned inns, however, did provide food and shelter for both men and horses and therefore became a symbol for hospitality. Indeed, the word innhas been used recently by many modern hotelsand motels.
A hotelis a temporary home for people who are travelling. In a hotel the traveller can rest and have meals, either on the premises or nearby. The hotel may also offer facilities for recreation, such a swimming pool, a golf course, or a beach. Very often the hotel so provides free space for the traveller's means of transportation.
All of these services are designed to accommodate the traveller, so the hotel business is often referred to as the accommodations industry.
The word motelwas created by combining "motor" and "hotel". When automobiles were first used for travelling, flimsy and inexpensive tourist cabinswere built along the roads. Then, as people demanded greater comfort, the cabins were replaced by tourist courtsand then by the modern motel, offering services comparable to the traditional hotels.
All hotels do not serve the same clientele, that is, the same kind of guests.
It is possible to place hotels in four broad categories.
The first is the commercial hotel,which provides services essentially for transients, many of them travelling on business. Many city hotels and motels fall into this group.
The second category is resort hotels.They are located in vacation areas and often provide recreational facilities of their own as well.
A third type of hotel aims its services largely at the convention trade.Conventions are meetings of various business or professional groups held on a regular basis.
The fourth category is resident hotels.People who do not wish to keep house themselves can rent accommodations on a seasonal basis or even permanently in many hotels.
No firm distinction exists between the different kinds of hotels. In large cities one hotel may offer all types of service.
Even a small motel may have banquet roomsand meeting rooms in addition to its accommodations for transients. Many resort hotels are also designed with complete convention facilities.
Another way of categorizing hotels is by the quality of service they offer.
At the top are the luxury hotels,which generally offer their guests the greatest comfort and convenience possible. At the bottom are those that provide merely a place to sleep. In between these two extremes are establishments offering a wide range of service and comfort.
A system for rating hotels according to quality is widely used in France and other countries. This system puts the top hotels in a special "deluxe" category, with others receiving from five stars to one star. The standard features include private bathrooms, room telephones, recreational facilities and so on.
The difference in quality between hotels is not entirely a matter of equipment or furnishings. The proportion of employees to guests and/or guest rooms is also a matter of prime importance. In general, the accommodations industry is labour intensive, that is, it employs a large number of people to perform its services. In a luxury hotel, there may be three employees for every guest room. In a large commercial hotel in a big city, the ratio is usually closer to one employee per guest room.
A small motel, family-owned and operated, may have only three employees per ten rooms and hire a maid to do the housekeeping chores. Obviously, the services offered by a small hotel will be far more restricted than those provided by a luxury hotel. A hotel that prides itself on its quality of service also maintains high standards of performance.
Переведите на английский:
1. Основная функция гостиниц – обеспечить туристов и деловых людей местом для проживания, едой и всеми необходимыми условиями.
2. Существуют разные виды гостиниц, и они классифицируются по
разным признакам.
3. Люди, которые имеют возможность заплатить, требуют больше комфорта во время путешествий.
4. Гостиницы предлагают своим гостям также условия для отдыха, занятий спортом, семейных встреч и другие развлечения.
5. Гостиницы в больших городах и в курортной местности сталкиваются с разными запросами своих клиентов, но не существует жесткого разделения между разными видами гостиниц, потому что все они предназначены для удовлетворения потребностей своих постояльцев.
6. Гостиницы классифицируются по разным признакам, но в основе любой классификации лежит качество услуг и удобства, предоставляемые постояльцам.
7. Разные люди предпочитают разные условия проживания, но все они предполагают, что в гостинице можно получить какое-то питание.
8. Дружелюбное отношение обслуживающего персонала и высококвалифицированное обслуживание определяют отношение постояльцев к той или иной гостинице.
Текст 3: Market failure
Pollution can be a simple example of market failure. If costs of production are not born by producers but are by the environment, accident victims or others, then prices are distorted.
The term "market failure" encompasses several problems which may undermine standard economic assumptions. Although economists categorize market failures differently, the following categories emerge in the main texts.
Natural monopoly, or the overlapping concepts of "practical" and "technical" monopoly, is an extreme case of failure of competition as a restraint on producers. The problem is described as one where the more of a product is made, the greater the unit costs are. This means it only makes economic sense to have one producer.
Information asymmetries arise where one party has more or better information than the other. The existence of information asymmetry gives rise to problems such as moral hazard, and adverse selection, studied in contract theory. The economics of information has relevance in many fields, including finance, insurance, contract law, and decision-making under risk and uncertainty.
Incomplete markets is a term used for a situation where buyers and sellers do not know enough about each other's positions to price goods and services properly. Based on George Akerlof's article, the paradigm example is of a dodgy second hand car market. Customers without the possibility to know for certain whether they are buying a "lemon" will push the average price down below what a good quality second hand car would be. In this way, prices may not reflect true values.
Public goods are goods which are undersupplied in a typical market. The defining features are that people can consume public goods without having to pay for them and that more than one person can consume the good at the same time.
Externalities occur where there are significant social costs or benefits from production or consumption that are not reflected in market prices. For example, air pollution may generate a negative externality, and education may generate a positive externality (less crime, etc.). Governments often tax and otherwise restrict the sale of goods that have negative externalities and subsidize or otherwise promote the purchase of goods that have positive externalities in an effort to correct the price distortions caused by these externalities. Elementary demand-and-supply theory predicts equilibrium but not the speed of adjustment for changes of equilibrium due to a shift in demand or supply.
In many areas, some form of price stickiness is postulated to account for quantities, rather than prices, adjusting in the short run to changes on the demand side or the supply side. This includes standard analysis of the business cycle in macroeconomics. Analysis often revolves around causes of such price stickiness and their implications for reaching a hypothesized long-run equilibrium. Examples of such price stickiness in particular markets include wage rates in labour markets and posted prices in markets deviating from perfect competition.
Macroeconomic instability, addressed below, is a prime source of market failure, whereby a general loss of business confidence or external shock can grind production and distribution to a halt, undermining ordinary markets that are otherwise sound.
Some specialized fields of economics deal in market failure more than others. The economics of the public sector is one example, since where markets fail, some kind of regulatory or government programme is the remedy. Much environmental economics concerns externalities.
Policy options include regulations that reflect cost-benefit analysis or market solutions that change incentives, such as emission fees or redefinition of property rights.
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