Help with essay...

[M1ke]

All done, thanks for help

[TheShaggyDA]

I don't think I could ever be bored enough.
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Current: CB500 Previous: CB100N, CB250RS, XJ900F, GT550, GPZ750R/1000RX, AJS M16, R100RT, Enfield Bullet

[i:6e3bfc7581]But still I fear and still I dare not laugh at the madman...[/i:6e3bfc7581]

[hellkat]

Only if you arrange for the degree to be awarded to us instead.


WtF is micro-business?

My brain suggests what it might be, and several examples spring to mind, but I can't be arsed googling it myself.

Besides, if you explain it here, it might bump-start your creative essay-writing juices.
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Not nearly as interesting in real life.

[M1ke]

I'm hoping someone with a tourism related degree will come along and give me a few pointers to get going, i'm not asking for extensive research

Only 12 weeks left...

[hellkat]

[M1ke]

Micro business is litterally a small business, usually employing less than 100 people, sometimes less than 10...

[T1z3R]

pointer number one:

do it yourself you lazy article
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duck my sick!

[hellkat]

Oh come on.

If a micro-business is what (in the olden days) was called a sole trader/small business, then its surely very easy to identify how tourism and micro-businesses are compatible.
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Not nearly as interesting in real life.

[M1ke]

[Walloper]

[hellkat]

Tourism drives many small businesses.

All those silly little handmade nick-knacks that you see when you are on holiday.

Many of them are made by large manufacturing companies, but many others, such as local ceramic painters in almost any mediterranean country you care to mention; wood carvers and exotic florists in Thailand/NZ/other Pacific countries, and local/native jewellery makers and other cultural things in almost every single country with high tourist traffic.

Its all to do with tourism, innit.

Even in London. Those stupid big felt hats you see tourists walking round in, even they started out as a one-man (or woman) business making silly hats, and took off into bigger business when drunken Australians started buying them all the time.

Take a walk around your nearest "touristy" town. Have a look for locally-made souvenirs and stuff.

Micro-businesses profiting from tourism.

Tourism also relies upon micro-biz due to the fact that although there are a certain large percentage of visitors to any region who are happy to trundle back home with bulk-manufactured plastic Eiffel Towers/raffia donkeys etc., there are also a great deal of tourists who really want something local and different to take home and show off to their friends, hence encouraging local craftsmen to produce interesting things for moneyed tourists to purchase. It makes them money to live on, and improves the local economy.

Symbiotic!
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Not nearly as interesting in real life.

[Walloper]

[owdamer]

[hellkat]

[M1ke]

[hellkat]

Because larger ones are more interested in increasing profits.

Whereas smaller ones are more interested in merely eking out an existence.

So they make more interesting stuff ... ?

I dunno.

Also, there's the cultural aspect to why they make this stuff (which is obviously related to their own personal way of life, beliefs, etc.), and which they realise will produce income for themselves or their community.

Take a quirkier look at the ability for money to be made from religious artifacts (such as "slivers of wood from Jesus' original cross") and other such tat; they create saleable goods for tourists with their local produce, and sell it on as "real" stuff.

You could indulge a paragraph or two in the negative aspect of the relationship between two, like poachers (not such a micro-business in many places, admittedly ) killing elephants for ivory, or for using their feet as wastepaper baskets.

Or sharp Masai tribesman in Kenya selling blood-n-milk so that gullible or adventurous tourists can drink it, like they do out on the plains, and learn about how the locals live. Or something.

I don't bloody know. Do your own bloody homework, LOL.

You don't have to acknowledge us in your PhD dissertation ... a mere karma point or two will suffice.


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Not nearly as interesting in real life.

[Walloper]

[Itchy]

Just write down the features which define a small business

Then write down the features of a tourist business look for overlap.

I have more of an economics/mathematics/computing background so my thoughts are often not 100% compatible with those of
business grads

I'll give you a starter for 2-300 words,

A small business / sole trader often works out of his own home or a mobile 'workplace'

EXAMPLE an Ice cream van,

So it goes like this depending on your writing style since I do a flow style instead of a list style , flow style is
dangerous since it allows horrible rambling, I ramble horribly in essays but will never encounter one ever again
though flow style leads the reader by the nose interlinks and as per its name flows. (all * marked citations are
fake).

Yadda yadda intro bullshit of all essays which you can write

One of the reasons as to why micro businesses are compatible with tourism is that according to Siggi* (1996) & also
Hellkat* (2007) who agrees with this trend is that many sold traders occupy small self contained business areas such
as their homes or a mobile work place. (DTI or CBI stats are fantastic for this so are council business tax stats)

An example of this is an ice cream van, which is self contained within a mobile vehicle, this interlinks with one of the
key aspects of the tourism industry in that it is seasonal and therefore in the off season there are low fixed costs
associated with the business being idle in the off season Begg (2006) (a real economics reference btw) , while
a larger fixed business that would not fit the definition of a micro business may have certain advantages over
the sole trader, as a result of this unit costs for the sole trader are higher while in comparisom fixed costs are higher
for the fixed larger business , such as council taxes and or the need to hire seasonal staff. (cite something supporting
this here).

A fixed location business is also by its nature fixed , in tourism is almost like fashion and can change , namely
the location and therefore this requires flexibility , the example of an ice cream man as compared to an ice cream
parlour again demonstrates this aptly as the sole trader be it in a van or a moble stand is extremely mobile compared to a
larger fixed business, and the sole trader is more compatible as the sole trader is more flexible.

However I would run with the idea that sole traders are only suitable for certain aspects of tourism , and thus
limit the area you are to write about , ie Hotels can and do work on the bigger is better principle so do airlines and
transport, while clearly ice cream vans do not.

You have to use this trick else you will not have enough words , its like an essay I remember which asked about
the airline industry

Airline industry , wtf does that mean ? , airlines? , aircraft manufacturers? , tourist industry? , BAA? ,

pick ONE at most 1.5 and run with it , you can't run with them all, Its good to start with the phrase , the airline
industry from the point of view of aircraft manufacturers......

if you have to explain things in depth use appendices , you can pretty much use 1000s of words in appendices
to get your point across , my paragraph above said fixed costs , too many words? , define them in the appendix
and or explain the principle.

Appendix 1

An ice cream van for example incurrs no costs when it is not in use as it can be SORN'd and left alone costing
the business and owner nothing in the off season other than routine maintenance, while a fixed location business
will incur costs if it operates or not such as rent , council tax etc. And it may have to open as its losses when operating
are less than those when it is closed down for the off season. (ie if I have £500 of fixed costs if closed I incur £500 of
fixed costs if I open and make £425 with £50 variable costs I only incurr £25 of fixed costs therefore the loss is
smaller).

Guideline ONLY!

[hellkat]

OMG ... references and everything


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Not nearly as interesting in real life.

[M1ke]

Cheer Itchy and Hellcat, you have been most helpful

[Walloper]

[M1ke]

Yes, also a big thankyou to walloper, my friends, family, especially mingles. I couldn't have done it without you.

500 words and counting...

[st3v3]

[TOM M]

Why i gave up studying degree business last year
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Now owner of a 1200 Bandit

[M1ke]

The sad thing is that I chose to do tourism as one of my module choices, a bit silly really when tourism is a degree in its self. The lectures are full of students that have been studying tourism for the past 2 years so I'm at a bit of a disadvantage compared to them.

None of it is exactly hard, just they have more background in it than me so will know what the lecturers like in the essays!