A car rental, hire car, or car hire agency is a company that rents automobiles for short periods of time, generally ranging from a few hours to a few weeks. It is often organized with numerous local branches (which allow a user to return a vehicle to a different location), and primarily located near airports or busy city areas and often complemented by a website allowing online reservations.

Car rental agencies primarily serve people who require a temporary vehicle, for example those who do not own their own car, travelers who are out of town, or owners of damaged or destroyed vehicles who are awaiting repair or insurance compensation. Car rental agencies may also serve the self-moving industry needs, by renting vans or trucks, and in certain markets other types of vehicles such as motorcycles or scooters may also be offered.

Alongside the basic rental of a vehicle, car rental agencies typically also offer extra products such as insurance, global positioning system (GPS) navigation systems, entertainment systems, and even such things as mobile phones.

History

Horses, chariots, carriages, and the like have been rented since time immemorial. The earliest known example of cars being offered for rent dates to 1904. The German company Sixt was established in 1912 with three cars for rent.

Joe Saunders of Omaha, Nebraska first started with only one borrowed Model T Ford in 1916, but by 1917, his Ford Livery Company was renting out 18 Model Ts at 10 cents per mile. The company name became Saunders Drive-It-Yourself System and then Saunders System. By 1926, Saunders had expanded to 56 cities. Saunders' company was bought by Avis in 1955.

An early competitor to Saunders was Walter L. Jacobs, whose Chicago-based Rent-a-Car opened in 1918 with twelve Ford Model T. The company was bought in 1923 by John Hertz.

In Britain, car rental started with Godfrey Davis, established in 1920, and bought by Europcar in 1981.

The sector expanded rapidly in the US; in 1926, the American Driveurself Association assembled over 1200 delegates in Chicago.

The growth in travel after World War II led to the establishment of several well known international companies, including National Car Rental (1947), Europcar (1949), Enterprise Rent-A-Car (1957), Thrifty Rent A Car (1958), and Budget Rent a Car (1958).

Budget Car Insurance

Business models

Car rental companies operate by purchasing or leasing a number of fleet vehicles and renting them to their customers for a fee. Rental fleets can be structured in several ways â€" they can be owned outright (these are known as ‘risk vehicles’ because the car rental operator is taking a risk on how much the vehicle will be sold for when it is removed from service), they can be leased, or they can be owned under a guaranteed buy-back program arranged directly through a manufacturer or manufacturer’s financial arm (these are known as ‘repurchase vehicles’ because the manufacturer outlines the exact price of original sale and of repurchase at the end of a defined term).

In the UK, the registration of rental cars can be concealed by using unfamiliar initials or subsidiaries, which can increase the resale value via manufacturer or third party dealers. In North America, it is common to see rental companies with their own branded second-hand car dealers where ex-rental stock is sold direct to the public. Alternatively, auctions are often used such as Manheim Auctions in the USA.

Types of vehicles

Most car rental offices offer a range of vehicle sizes to suit a variety of budgets and space requirements and some additionally offer specialized vehicles to suit its location such as convertibles, prestige models, hybrid/electric vehicles, or SUVs and passenger vans. At major airports or in larger cities, some independent car rental agencies offer high-end vehicles for rent. Some specialized companies such as Rent-a-Wreck offer older vehicles at reduced prices.

To allow for a uniform classification and easy comparison of car rental prices, the Association of Car Rental Industry Systems and Standards (ACRISS) has developed the ACRISS Car Classification Code coding system. This describes the size, door count, gearbox type (manual/automatic), and whether the car is air-conditioned, encoded into four letters. Additional classifications based on seat numbers and trunk volume were also set by the Belgian Rent a Car association in order to provide a unified system for assessing the car types in online reservation systems such as Amadeus or Sabre.

Rental conditions

Car rentals are subject to many conditions which vary from one country to another and from one company to another. Generally the vehicle must be returned in the same condition it was rented in, and often must not exceed mileage restrictions, otherwise extra fees may be incurred.

For insurance reasons, some companies stipulate a minimum and/or maximum rental age. In some cases, the minimum age for rental can be as high as 25, even in countries where the minimum legal age to hold a driver's license is much lower, e.g. 14,15,16 or 17 in the United States. It is not uncommon for there to be a young driver surcharge for all drivers aged under 25.

In all cases a valid driver's license is required in order to rent a vehicle, and some countries require an International Driving Permit (IDP).

Recent conditions have utilized GPS technology to limit maximum speeds or driving to specific regions. Renewable fuel vehicles are available in certain areas.

The majority of car rental companies require the use of a credit card to charge additional fees should a defect be found with the car on its return or for road tolls, motoring related fines, or missing fuel. In lieu of a credit card, some companies require a large cash deposit. Some companies, such as Enterprise, permit a debit card for deposits, typically with proof of a round-trip travel ticket, e.g. an airline, bus, or train ticket.

Insurance/waivers

Although frequently not explicitly stated, US car rental companies are required by respective state law to provide minimal liability coverage, except in California, where the driver is solely responsible. This covers costs to a third party in the event of an accident. In most states, it is illegal to drive a car without liability coverage. The rental car companies maintain liability insurance on their vehicles; however, some companies will charge for this, should you not provide your own insurance. As an example, in Maryland, the minimal level of liability coverage is $20,000 for bodily injury and $15,000 for property damage.

It is typical, when renting a car, to be offered various forms of supplemental insurance and/or damage waivers as an optional extra at additional cost. There are several types of coverage:

• Loss Damage Waiver (LDW) - covers the cost of damage to the rental vehicle, up to the full value of the vehicle, in the event of an accident. Typically LDW covers 100% of costs without a deductible additional fees. Note that LDW/CDW coverage is not insurance and does not offer the same coverage product as a damage insurance policy.
• Collision Damage Waiver (CDW) - Generally covers the costs of damage from a moving accident. As the name suggests, non-collision based damage is often not covered. In many cases, in the event of an accident a fee or deductible applies.

• Supplemental Liability Insurance (SLI) â€" a product often sold in the USA which provides coverage in the event of an accident causing bodily injury or property damage to someone other than the renter and passengers.
• Personal Accident Insurance (PAI) â€" covers medical costs and accidental death for the renter and passengers in the event of an accident during the rental.
• Personal Effects Coverage (PEC) â€" insures against risk of loss or damage to the personal belongings of the renter (and sometimes the members of the renter's family while traveling with the renter) during the period of the rental.
• Excess Insurance â€" Collision damage waiver, Theft and Third Party Liability coverage are often included in car rental prices in Europe, Africa, and Australasia. There is almost always an excess on these (also referred to as Super CDW, Non Waiver, or Deductible), which involves an amount of money customers must pay in the event of damage, to discourage drivers from making small claims. A higher excess usually results in a lower upfront insurance cost for customers, but if damage occurs costing less than the excess to repair, then there is little incentive for customers to claim, benefiting the insurer. Excess insurance (also known as excess reduction, or damage liability waiver) is a secondary insurance which covers the cost of that excess in the event of a claim. Car-rental companies in Europe, South America, and Australasia will generally offer this cover as an opt-in secondary insurance, though third party insurance companies also sell excess coverage for hire cars, which may offer greater protections than standard coverage.

In the USA, the sale of these supplemental insurance/waiver products may be regulated by each state's insurance department, and a special limited license may be required by the rental company in order to sell them. The specific coverage offered can differ substantially, depending on the state or country in which the car is rented.

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Strategic planning software is a category of software that covers a wide range of strategic topics, methodologies, modeling and reporting. Loosely speaking, the software can be categorized into the following types:

1. Small business oriented strategic and business planning. Here, the focus is primarily upon developing goals, a business plan and a financial projection.

2. Execution oriented software, e.g. Kapta and Achieveit that is focused more upon cascading the implementation of strategic plans and is often similar in functionality to project portfolio management, agile and project management software.

3. Large business oriented strategic planning software. This particular category is often customized by a company and may consist of multiple elements that can cover a wide range of requirements. Word processing and spreadsheet templates are common in this area. Consolidation is often a critical aspect of this domain with a variety of enterprise software, OLAP (On Line Analytical Processing or multi-dimensional spreadsheets) and databases used. ROLAP combines relational and multi-dimensional capabilities. In recent years, reporting software has gained the label, Business Intelligence or BI software. Dashboards, first made popular by the idea of the Balanced Scorecard are common means of reporting on multiple dimensions of ongoing performance.

4. Scenario planning software. While a small category, software for supporting scenario analysis does exist. It tends to be relatively simple in nature due to the belief of many scenario facilitators that scenarios should be more stories than numerical models. Currently (2013 on), there is an emerging trend of using modeling to support and analyse the consequences of particular scenarios.

5. Simulations and war-games. It may seem strange to include computer simulation and war-games as strategic planning software. The rationale however, comes out of both military strategic planning and also the emergence of strategic management as a concept in the 1980s. The assumption behind strategic management was that separation of planning from execution was ineffective, so strategic planning should be devolved in the organization to those who would executive. Simulations and wargames became a way of sharing knowledge about markets and provide a cognitive frame for decision making.

6. Predictive software and models. There is a long history in strategic planning of the use of predictive models. In the 1970s, the Strategic Planning Institute collected data on the performance of business units at its subscribers. The resulting Profit Impact of Market Strategy (PIMS) model was very influential with its key insights about the value of having highest or second highest market share in improving profitability and return on equity. Harvard Business School professor, Michael Porter's influential book, Competitive Strategy was based upon this data. NewProd and DanProd, based upon the research of Robert Cooper, a new product researcher at McMaster University developed and commercialized a regression model that correlates .8 with new product success based upon over 3,000 new product launches. Advia New Product, developed by the now defunct, Alacrity Inc. and its co-founder, Mary Chung, provided a phased a set of new product development templates with expert system for evaluating whether a new product should proceed to the next stage.

7. Expert system based strategy evaluation systems. The first, managerial expert system, Alacrity was developed by Allstar Advice Inc. in 1985 and 1986 and launched in 1987 by associated company, Alacritous Inc. which later changed its name to Alacrity Inc. It contained what was probably the most comprehensive strategic planning functionality ever developed for an off-the-shelf packaged software product. It contained a 3,000 rule expert system that used concepts of market life cycle, Porter 5-Forces model, Utterback and Abernathy innovation models, generic strategy, and learning curves to make predictions about market evolution. Additional functionality included business and strategic planning templates, product/business unit portfolio analysis, financial modeling of income statements, balance sheets and cash flow with an attached financial expert system. The same company also launched a small business planning system, Advia Decide and Manage which is no longer available.

8. Packaging of major consulting firms' methodologies for strategic analysis as a component of the strategic planning process. The examples are typically narrow in focus and don't encompass a full set of planning, execution and monitoring processes. Examples include Stella and iThink based upon Peter Senge's book, The Fifth Discipline, BCG Matrix for Brand Portfolio Analysis Net Promoter Score software, Management Software Associates' Competitive Strategy (which modeled strategic cost drivers such as learning curves, impact of scale, impact of complexity, economies of scope and value), Portfolio Analysis and New Product Modeling using viral models.

The Initial Vision of Strategic Planning Software

The initial concept behind strategic planning software was the product of two different trends.

First, in the 1980s, the increasing availability of personal computers lowered the barriers to software development and made computers increasingly available to more managers. But it's worth remembering that even in 1987, selling strategic planning software often required selling a manager a computer and training them how to use productivity software (i.e. word processing, spreadsheets, graphics, outlining, etc.) Laptops were initially nonexistent and the state of art in portability was a sewing machine sized luggable computer. Previously, report creation often required hand writing or dictation which was then typed up by a secretary or word processing pool.

Second, in the early days of strategic planning concepts were few. Concepts typically included decentralization (e.g. formation of strategic business units or SBUs), relatively simplistic portfolio analysis (e.g. BCG dogs/stars/cash cow/"?" categorization), and were frequently capital and operating budgeting oriented. As a result, strategic planning software was relatively simple to create via word processing templates, graphical outputs and budgeting models.

In this approach the vision was to create a computer application that aids in a strategic planning process. The user was to be guided through the steps of the planning process. The process of guidance existed at several potential levels: (1) the furnishing of templates with categories of information that ought to be created, which implicitly suggests analysis, (2) help systems that educate users about definitions, processes, concepts, managerial models, (3) more workflow oriented interactions where inputs are manipulated, summarized or aggregated by the software. Software of this type may use questionnaires, categorical judgments, financial or market modeling and in rare cases rule based expert systems.

As a general rule, off the shelf applications are rarely successful except for relatively unskilled entrepreneurs lacking a formal business education, which perhaps accounts for the software's lack of commercial success. The most commonly used strategic planning tools and techniques tend to be relatively simple and the models used have a high level of abstraction requiring diligent interpretation and modification by participants. Systems that promise answers, e.g. rule based systems often create more value from the questioning process than from the actual answer produced in the same way that planning as an activity educates users and this education is often more important than the actual plan itself.

SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) is a good example of a heuristic that is useful but also easy to misapply. Cascading of action plans makes intuitive sense but is frequently done in such a way as to demotivate employees. Because of the difficulty of combining strategic planning, strategic management, portfolio management, information technology strategy's congruence with business strategy, implementation monitoring, scenarios and contingency planning, risk analysis, Balanced Scorecard specifically and dashboards generally, the strategy process tends to be difficult to deal with comprehensively in a single software package. In large companies, the constant tends to be that the financial function ends up with significant influence over the process because of the requirement to report to the Board of Directors and manage capital and operating budgets.

Budgeting Software for Business | Enterprise Budgeting

Agile Planning and Strategic Management

One of the current trends in strategic planning is the adoption of agile or lean methodologies. By their very nature, agile methodologies tend to be strong on emphasizing employee accountability and less interested in documentation. The emergence of agile in technology areas parallels the transformation of strategic planning to strategic management. Excessive documentation becomes an obstacle to revision as new information is gained about competitors, customers, distributors and suppliers. Agile's importance is driven by the faster rate of technology innovation, the lower cost of developing applications, the increase in the number of companies and individuals with similar capabilities, and faster learning from markets.

An excellent example of an extremely well specified agile methodology is Scrum. Scrum falls into the category of a methodology for autonomous work teams. Scrum approaches are now expanding outside of its initial application area in software development to other areas of business. However, Scrum tends to limit itself to prioritization rather than more traditional strategic planning processes. Unlike traditional strategic planning which was frequently tied to the annual budgeting process, Scrum is more iterative. Scrum projects have daily, iterative phase or "sprint" planning, and release planning which represents something akin to multi-generational product or strategy plan.

Traditionally, strategic planning was done 3â€"6 months prior to the beginning of the budget year, which ensured that decision making lagged market trends. Strategic management where the strategic planning process was pushed down in the organization has tended to follow this approach, the new variable being the accountability for both plan development and execution. Agile and more project oriented approaches work well in start-ups that lack the bureaucracy of larger companies, but they too always run into the issue of updating operating and capital budgets, along with risk profiles.

Supporting software for Scrum is available from multiple vendors, e.g. Rally Software. As of 2014, these pieces of software tend to be oriented on prioritizing product features (i.e. use-cases, user stories), prioritizing (grooming user stories) and iterating development in phases. They tend to be weaker when handling architectural issues, portfolio analysis and large numbers of autonomous teams.

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A hotel is an establishment that provides lodging paid on a short-term basis. Facilities provided may range from a basic bed and storage for clothing, to luxury features like en-suite bathrooms. Larger hotels may provide additional guest facilities such as a swimming pool, business centre, childcare, conference facilities and social function services. Hotel rooms are usually numbered (or named in some smaller hotels and B&Bs) to allow guests to identify their room. Some hotels offer meals as part of a room and board arrangement. In the United Kingdom, a hotel is required by law to serve food and drinks to all guests within certain stated hours. In Japan, capsule hotels provide a minimized amount of room space and shared facilities.

The precursor to the modern hotel was the inn of medieval Europe. For a period of about 200 years from the mid-17th century, coaching inns served as a place for lodging for coach travelers. Inns began to cater for richer clients in the mid-18th century. One of the first hotels in a modern sense was opened in Exeter in 1768. Hotels proliferated throughout Western Europe and North America in the 19th century, and luxury hotels began to spring up in the later part of the century.

Hotel operations vary in size, function, and cost. Most hotels and major hospitality companies have set industry standards to classify hotel types. An upscale full-service hotel facility offers luxury amenities, full service accommodations, on-site full service restaurant(s), and the highest level of personalized service. Full service hotels often contain upscale full-service facilities with a large volume of full service accommodations, on-site full service restaurant(s), and a variety of on-site amenities. Boutique hotels are smaller independent non-branded hotels that often contain upscale facilities. Small to medium-sized hotel establishments offer a limited amount of on-site amenities. Economy hotels are small to medium-sized hotel establishments that offer basic accommodations with little to no services. Extended stay hotels are small to medium-sized hotels that offer longer term full service accommodations compared to a traditional hotel.

Timeshare and Destination clubs are a form of property ownership involving ownership of an individual unit of accommodation for seasonal usage. A motel is a small-sized low-rise lodging with direct access to individual rooms from the car park. Boutique hotels are typically hotels with a unique environment or intimate setting. A number of hotels have entered the public consciousness through popular culture, such as the Ritz Hotel in London. Some hotels are built specifically as a destination in itself, for example at casinos and holiday resorts.

Most hotel establishments consist of a General Manager who serves as the head executive (often referred to as the "Hotel Manager"), department heads who oversee various departments within a hotel, middle managers, administrative staff, and line-level supervisors. The organizational chart and volume of job positions and hierarchy varies by hotel size, function, and is often determined by hotel ownership and managing companies.

Etymology

The word hotel is derived from the French hôtel (coming from the same origin as hospital), which referred to a French version of a building seeing frequent visitors, and providing care, rather than a place offering accommodation. In contemporary French usage, hôtel now has the same meaning as the English term, and hôtel particulier is used for the old meaning, as well as "hôtel" in some place names such as Hôtel-Dieu (in Paris), which has been a hospital since the Middle Ages. The French spelling, with the circumflex, was also used in English, but is now rare. The circumflex replaces the 's' found in the earlier hostel spelling, which over time took on a new, but closely related meaning. Grammatically, hotels usually take the definite article â€" hence "The Astoria Hotel" or simply "The Astoria."

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History

Facilities offering hospitality to travellers have been a feature of the earliest civilizations. In Greco-Roman culture hospitals for recuperation and rest were built at thermal baths. During the Middle Ages various religious orders at monasteries and abbeys would offer accommodation for travellers on the road.

The precursor to the modern hotel was the inn of medieval Europe, possibly dating back to the rule of Ancient Rome. These would provide for the needs of travelers, including food and lodging, stabling and fodder for the traveler's horse(s) and fresh horses for the mail coach. Famous London examples of inns include the George and the Tabard. A typical layout of an inn had an inner court with bedrooms on the two sides, with the kitchen and parlour at the front and the stables at the back.

For a period of about 200 years from the mid-17th century, coaching inns served as a place for lodging for coach travelers (in other words, a roadhouse). Coaching inns stabled teams of horses for stagecoaches and mail coaches and replaced tired teams with fresh teams. Traditionally they were seven miles apart but this depended very much on the terrain.

Some English towns had as many as ten such inns and rivalry between them was intense, not only for the income from the stagecoach operators but for the revenue for food and drink supplied to the wealthy passengers. By the end of the century, coaching inns were being run more professionally, with a regular timetable being followed and fixed menus for food.

Inns began to cater for richer clients in the mid-18th century, and consequently grew in grandeur and the level of service provided. One of the first hotels in a modern sense was opened in Exeter in 1768, although the idea only really caught on in the early 19th century. In 1812 Mivart's Hotel opened its doors in London, later changing its name to Claridge's.

Hotels proliferated throughout Western Europe and North America in the 19th century, and luxury hotels, including Tremont House and Astor House in the United States, Savoy Hotel in the United Kingdom and the Ritz chain of hotels in London and Paris, began to spring up in the later part of the century, catering to an extremely wealthy clientele.

International scale

Hotels cater to travelers from many countries and languages, since no one country dominates the travel industry.

Types

Hotel operations vary in size, function, and cost. Most hotels and major hospitality companies that operate hotels have set widely accepted industry standards to classify hotel types. General categories include the following:

Upscale luxury

An upscale full service hotel facility that offers luxury amenities, full service accommodations, on-site full service restaurant(s), and the highest level of personalized and professional service. Luxury hotels are normally classified with at least a Four Diamond or Five Diamond status or a Four or Five Star rating depending on the country and local classification standards. Examples may include: InterContinental, Waldorf Astoria, Four Seasons, Conrad, Fairmont, and The Ritz-Carlton.

Full service

Full service hotels often contain upscale full-service facilities with a large volume of full service accommodations, on-site full service restaurant(s), and a variety of on-site amenities such as swimming pools, a health club, children's activities, ballrooms, on-site conference facilities, and other amenities. Examples may include: Starwood â€" Westin, Hilton, Marriott, and Hyatt hotels

Historic inns and boutique hotels

Boutique hotels are smaller independent non-branded hotels that often contain upscale facilities of varying size in unique or intimate settings with full service accommodations. Boutique hotels are generally 100 rooms or less. Some historic inns and boutique hotels may be classified as luxury hotels. Examples include Hotel Indigo and Kimpton Hotels.

Focused or select service

Small to medium-sized hotel establishments that offer a limited amount of on-site amenities that only cater and market to a specific demographic of travelers, such as the single business traveler. Most focused or select service hotels may still offer full service accommodations but may lack leisure amenities such as an on-site restaurant or a swimming pool. Examples include Crowne Plaza, Courtyard by Marriott and Hilton Garden Inn.

Economy and limited service

Small to medium-sized hotel establishments that offer a very limited amount of on-site amenities and often only offer basic accommodations with little to no services, these facilities normally only cater and market to a specific demographic of travelers, such as the budget-minded traveler seeking a "no frills" accommodation. Limited service hotels often lack an on-site restaurant but in return may offer a limited complimentary food and beverage amenity such as on-site continental breakfast service. Examples include Hampton Inn, Aloft, Holiday Inn Express, Fairfield Inn, Four Points by Sheraton, and Days Inn.

Extended stay

Extended stay hotels are small to medium-sized hotels that offer longer term full service accommodations compared to a traditional hotel. Extended stay hotels may offer non-traditional pricing methods such as a weekly rate that cater towards travelers in need of short-term accommodations for an extended period of time. Similar to limited and select service hotels, on-site amenities are normally limited and most extended stay hotels lack an on-site restaurant. Examples include Staybridge Suites, Homewood Suites by Hilton, Home2 Suites by Hilton, Residence Inn by Marriott, Element, and Extended Stay Hotels.

Timeshare and destination clubs

Timeshare and Destination clubs are a form of property ownership also referred to as a vacation ownership involving the purchase and ownership of an individual unit of accommodation for seasonal usage during a specified period of time. Timeshare resorts often offer amenities similar that of a Full service hotel with on-site restaurant(s), swimming pools, recreation grounds, and other leisure-oriented amenities. Destination clubs on the other hand may offer more exclusive private accommodations such as private houses in a neighborhood-style setting. Examples of timeshare brands include Hilton Grand Vacations, Marriott Vacation Club International, Westgate Resorts, Starwood Vacation Ownership, and Disney Vacation Club.

Motel

A motel is a small-sized low-rise lodging establishment similar to that of a limited service hotel, but with direct access to individual rooms from the car park. Common during the 1950s and 1960s, motels were often located adjacent to a major road, where they were built on inexpensive land at the edge of towns or along stretches of highways .

New motel construction is rare as hotel chains have been building economy limited service franchised properties at freeway exits which compete for largely the same clientele, largely saturating the market by the 1990s. They are still useful in less populated areas for driving travelers, but the more populated an area becomes the more hotels fill the need. Many of the motels which remain in operation have joined national franchise chains, rebranding themselves as hotels, inns or lodges.

Management

Hotel management is a globally accepted professional career field and academic field of study. Degree programs such as hospitality management studies, a business degree, and/or certification programs formally prepare hotel managers for industry practice.

Most hotel establishments consist of a General Manager who serves as the head executive (often referred to as the "Hotel Manager"), department heads who oversee various departments within a hotel, middle managers, administrative staff, and line-level supervisors. The organizational chart and volume of job positions and hierarchy varies by hotel size, function, and is often determined by hotel ownership and managing companies.

Unique and specialty hotels

Historic Inns and boutique hotels

Boutique hotels are typically hotels with a unique environment or intimate setting. Some hotels have gained their renown through tradition, by hosting significant events or persons, such as Schloss Cecilienhof in Potsdam, Germany, which derives its fame from the Potsdam Conference of the World War II allies Winston Churchill, Harry Truman and Joseph Stalin in 1945. The Taj Mahal Palace & Tower in Mumbai is one of India's most famous and historic hotels because of its association with the Indian independence movement. Some establishments have given name to a particular meal or beverage, as is the case with the Waldorf Astoria in New York City, United States where the Waldorf Salad was first created or the Hotel Sacher in Vienna, Austria, home of the Sachertorte. Others have achieved fame by association with dishes or cocktails created on their premises, such as the Hotel de Paris where the crêpe Suzette was invented or the Raffles Hotel in Singapore, where the Singapore Sling cocktail was devised.

A number of hotels have entered the public consciousness through popular culture, such as the Ritz Hotel in London, through its association with Irving Berlin's song, 'Puttin' on the Ritz'. The Algonquin Hotel in New York City is famed as the meeting place of the literary group, the Algonquin Round Table, and Hotel Chelsea, also in New York City, has been the subject of a number of songs and the scene of the stabbing of Nancy Spungen (allegedly by her boyfriend Sid Vicious).

Resort hotels

Some hotels are built specifically as a destination in itself to create a captive trade, example at casinos and holiday resorts. Though of course hotels have always been built in popular destinations, the defining characteristic of a resort hotel is that it exists purely to serve another attraction, the two having the same owners.

On the Las Vegas Strip there is a tradition of one-upmanship with luxurious and extravagant hotels in a concentrated area. This trend now has extended to other resorts worldwide, but the concentration in Las Vegas is still the world's highest: nineteen of the world's twenty-five largest hotels by room count are on the Strip, with a total of over 67,000 rooms.

In Europe Center Parcs might be considered a chain of resort hotels, since the sites are largely man-made (though set in natural surroundings such as country parks) with captive trade, whereas holiday camps such as Butlins and Pontin's are probably not considered as resort hotels, since they are set at traditional holiday destinations which existed before the camps.

Other speciality hotels

• The Burj al-Arab hotel in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, built on an artificial island, is structured in the shape of a boat's sail.
• The Library Hotel in New York City, is unique in that each of its ten floors is assigned one category from the Dewey Decimal System.
• The Jailhotel Löwengraben in Lucerne, Switzerland is a converted prison now used as a hotel.
• The Luxor, a hotel and casino on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada, United States is unusual due to its pyramidal structure.
• The Liberty Hotel in Boston, used to be the Charles Street Jail.
• Hotel Kakslauttanen in Finland, a collection of glass igloos in Lapland that allow you to watch the Northern Lights
• Built in Scotland and completed in 1936, The former ocean liner RMS Queen Mary in Long Beach, California, United States uses its first-class staterooms as a hotel, after retiring in 1967 from Transatlantic service.
• The Wigwam Motels used patented novelty architecture in which each motel room was a free-standing concrete wigwam or teepee.
• Various Caboose Motel or Red Caboose Inn properties are built from decommissioned rail cars.
• Throughout the world there are several hotels built from converted airliners.

Bunker hotels

The Null Stern Hotel in Teufen, Appenzellerland, Switzerland and the Concrete Mushrooms in Albania are former nuclear bunkers transformed into hotels.

Cave hotels

The Cuevas Pedro Antonio de Alarcón (named after the author) in Guadix, Spain, as well as several hotels in Cappadocia, Turkey, are notable for being built into natural cave formations, some with rooms underground. The Desert Cave Hotel in Coober Pedy, South Australia is built into the remains of an opal mine.

Cliff hotels

Located on the coast but high above sea level, these hotels offer unobstructed panoramic views and a great sense of privacy without the feeling of total isolation. Some examples from around the globe are the Riosol Hotel in Gran Canaria, Caruso Belvedere Hotel in Amalfi Coast (Italy), Aman Resorts Amankila in Bali, Birkenhead House in Hermanus (South Africa), The Caves in Jamaica and Caesar Augustus in Capri.

Capsule hotels

Capsule hotels are a type of economical hotel first introduced in Japan, where people sleep in stacks of rectangular containers.

Ice, snow and igloo hotels

Igloo Village in Kakslauttanen,the Ice Hotel in Jukkasjärvi, Sweden is the first ice hotel in the world, built in 1990, and the Hotel de Glace in Duschenay, Canada, melt every spring and are rebuilt each winter; the Mammut Snow Hotel in Finland is located within the walls of the Kemi snow castle; and the Lainio Snow Hotel is part of a snow village near Ylläs, Finland.

Garden hotels

Garden hotels, famous for their gardens before they became hotels, include Gravetye Manor, the home of garden designer William Robinson, and Cliveden, designed by Charles Barry with a rose garden by Geoffrey Jellicoe.

Referral hotel

A referral hotel is a hotel chain that offers branding to independently-operated hotels; the chain itself is founded by or owned by the member hotels as a group. Many former referral chains have been converted to franchises; the largest surviving member-owned chain is Best Western.

Railway hotels

Frequently, expanding railway companies built grand hotels at their termini, such as the Midland Hotel, Manchester next to the former Manchester Central Station, and in London the ones above St Pancras railway station and Charing Cross railway station. London also has the Chiltern Court Hotel above Baker Street tube station, there are also Canada's grand railway hotels. They are or were mostly, but not exclusively, used by those traveling by rail.

Straw bale hotels

The Maya Guesthouse in Nax Mont-Noble in the Swiss Alps, is the first hotel in Europe built entirely with straw bales. Due to the insulation values of the walls it needs no conventional heating or air conditioning system, although the Maya Guesthouse is built at an altitude of 1,300 metres (4,300 ft) in the Alps.

Transit hotels

Transit hotels are short stay hotels typically used at international airports where passengers can stay while waiting to change airplanes. The hotels are typically on the airside and do not require a visa for a stay.

Treehouse hotels

Some hotels are built with living trees as structural elements, for example the Treehotel near Piteå, Sweden, the Costa Rica Tree House in the Gandoca-Manzanillo Wildlife Refuge, Costa Rica; the Treetops Hotel in Aberdare National Park, Kenya; the Ariau Towers near Manaus, Brazil, on the Rio Negro in the Amazon; and Bayram's Tree Houses in Olympos, Turkey.

Underwater hotels

Some hotels have accommodation underwater, such as Utter Inn in Lake Mälaren, Sweden. Hydropolis, project in Dubai, would have had suites on the bottom of the Persian Gulf, and Jules' Undersea Lodge in Key Largo, Florida requires scuba diving to access its rooms.

Records

Largest

In 2006, Guinness World Records listed the First World Hotel in Genting Highlands, Malaysia, as the world's largest hotel with a total of 6,118 rooms. The Izmailovo Hotel in Moscow has the most rooms, with 7,500, followed by The Venetian and The Palazzo complex in Las Vegas (7,117 rooms) and MGM Grand Las Vegas complex (6,852 rooms).

Oldest

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the oldest hotel in operation is the Nisiyama Onsen Keiunkan in Yamanashi, Japan. The hotel, first opened in 707 A.D. has been operated by the same family for forty-six generations. The title was held until 2011 by the Hoshi Ryokan, in the Awazu Onsen area of Komatsu, Japan, which opened in the year 718, as the history of the Nisiyama Onsen Keiunkan was virtually unknown.

Highest

The Ritz-Carlton Hong Kong claims to be the world's highest hotel. It is located on the top floors of the International Commerce Centre in Hong Kong, at 484 metres (1,588 ft) above ground level.

Most expensive purchase

In October 2014, the Anbang Insurance Group, based in China, purchased the Waldorf Astoria New York in Manhattan for US$1.95 billion, making it the world's most expensive hotel ever sold.

Living in hotels

A number of public figures have notably chosen to take up semi-permanent or permanent residence in hotels.

• Fashion designer Coco Chanel lived in the Hôtel Ritz, Paris, on and off for more than 30 years.
• Inventor Nikola Tesla lived the last ten years of his life at the New Yorker Hotel until he died in his room in 1943.
• Larry Fine (of The Three Stooges) and his family lived in hotels, due to his extravagant spending habits and his wife's dislike for housekeeping. They first lived in the President Hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey, where his daughter Phyllis was raised, then the Knickerbocker Hotel in Hollywood. Not until the late 1940s did Larry buy a home in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles.
• The Waldorf-Astoria Hotel and its affiliated Waldorf Towers has been the home of many famous persons over the years including former President Herbert Hoover who lived there from the end of his presidency in 1933 until his death in 1964. General Douglas MacArthur lived his last 14 years in the penthouse of the Waldorf Towers. And the composer Cole Porter also spent the last 25 years of his life in an apartment at the Waldorf Towers.
• Millionaire Howard Hughes lived in hotels during the last ten years of his life (1966â€"76), primarily in Las Vegas, as well as Acapulco, Beverly Hills, Boston, Freeport, London, Managua, Nassau, Vancouver, and others.
• Vladimir Nabokov and his wife Vera lived in the Montreux Palace Hotel in Montreux, Switzerland (1961-his death in 1977).
• Actor Richard Harris lived at the Savoy Hotel while in London. Hotel archivist Susan Scott recounts an anecdote that, when he was being taken out of the building on a stretcher shortly before his death in 2002, he raised his hand and told the diners "it was the food."
• Egyptian actor Ahmed Zaki lived his last 15 years in Ramses Hilton Hotel â€" Cairo.
• British entrepreneur Jack Lyons lived in the Hotel Mirador Kempinski in Switzerland for several years until his death in 2008.
• American actress Elaine Stritch lived in the Savoy Hotel in London for over a decade.

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Real Madrid Fantasy Manager is a football club management game developed by From The Bench. The game is currently available on Facebook, iPhone and Android platforms.

The game has been designed according to the theme of Real Madrid CF. The first launched edition of the game was the 2011 version, later the 2012, then 2013 and currently the 2014 edition is being used.

Gameplay

Start of the game

At the start of the game, the players has three options â€" to create his own squad, to play with the whole squad of Real Madrid, or to play with the team, which the system prepares.

If the player wants to make his own squad, he has €90 million as his budget, and he can browse through various teams & available players. He must buy a minimum 2 goalkeepers, 5 defenders, 5 midfielders & 3 strikers. To play with the whole squad of Real Madrid, more shields have to be brought. If the player chooses to go for the team which the system chooses, he gets a random team with one Real Madrid Player, 15 shields & €7 million as a budget.

Game currency

Shields are currently the main virtual currency of the game, which can be used to increase budget, shop items, signing players, etc. in the game. Shields can be obtained in the shop, where you can buy more shields via your facebook credits.

The other major currency is the money or total budget available with the team, which previously was counted in terms of Euro.

Facilities

Facilities are the main source of income for your team. You can unlock more facilities by leveling-up or by gaining more partners. There are many facilities you can build like offices, shops, bars, hotels, etc. As you progress and level-up, upgrades to the current facilities unlock, which are more yielding and are better than the older one.

In the middle of all the facilities is the Estadio Santiago Bernabéu, which is the highest yielding facility, and the only facility that you don't have to buy. Also, money is never used for the maintenance of the stadium.

Matches

You can play matches with teams of other users, and if your team is stronger and fit enough, you win. Once you win, you gain experience and some money from the budget of your opponent. For winning a match, a team must have a good score, which is decided by the performance criteria of the real-life player. For getting better scores, signing new players is important. New players can be signed via both shields or the money.

The players from all the teams of La Liga, Primeira Liga, Premier League, Serie A, Süper Lig & Bundesliga are available to sign. Players whose team have a fantasy manager are available having their own real faces. Currently Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi & Wayne Rooney are the most expensive players in the market.

As the season progresses, matches against users or the managers of others fantasy managers are introduced. Also, at a point of time the daily sprints are also introduced.

On 1 December 2011, just a few days before the el clasico, matches against the users of FC Barcelona Fantasy Manager, representing FC Barcelona were introduced. Also, different prizes by winning matches & different limited-edition equipment were announced.

On 20 December 2011, Tuesday, the tournaments were launched for the 2012 season (as a part of the new update), before the start of the winter break in the real-life games.

Performance criteria of players

Every time a real life player is involved in a Premier League or European match his skills will be updated in the game according to his performance and statistics from that match.

A player who doesn´t play in a match will have a score of 0, irrespective of the final result.

Partners

Partners, or Socios are the users that are somehow connected with us, and play among with us in the game. In facebook you can invite your friends to game, and they unlock as partners when they reach level 5. In iPhone, you can invite partners by giving them your code. Partners help us to get more profit from our facilities, and also help us to win matches.

A partner can also be obtained in the shop, which consumes 5 shields per 1 Socio. Sometimes even a partner is gained when the app is visited daily and while getting its daily reward.

There are a total 130,000 number of monthly active users of the game, making it the most popular game in the fantasy manager series.

Jobs

Other than playing matches, there are many other jobs that are useful to gain money and experience. Purchasing better facilities will allow better jobs. Jobs are categorised in various categories like the jobs through which whether only money is gained, only experience is gained or those which give both money & experience.

As facilities are upgraded, more better jobs are unlocked, that give more benefits while consuming much less energy.

Bank

The bank is the place where you can safeguard your money. It is important to deposit money in the bank in order to reduce your losses if you lose a challenge from another user. A 10% commission charge is cut from the money while being deposited. No charge is applied while withdrawing the savings from the bank.

Top 5 Expense Tracking Apps for Android

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Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a 1956 American black-and-white science fiction film shot and told in Film Noir style, produced by Walter Wanger, directed by Don Siegel, and starring Kevin McCarthy and Dana Wynter. The film was released through Allied Artists Picture Corporation. Daniel Mainwaring adapted the screenplay from Jack Finney's science fiction novel The Body Snatchers (1954).

The story depicts an extraterrestrial invasion that begins in the fictional California town of Santa Mira. Alien plant spores have fallen from space and grown into large seed pods, each one capable of reproducing a duplicate replacement copy of each human. As each pod reaches full development, it assimilates the physical characteristics, memories, and personalities of each sleeping person placed near it; these duplicates, however, are devoid of all human emotion. Little by little, a local doctor uncovers this "quiet" invasion and attempts to stop it.

The slang expression "pod people" that arose in late 20th Century American culture references the emotionless duplicates seen in the film.

In 1994 Invasion of the Body Snatchers was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

Plot

Psychiatrist Dr. Hill is called to the emergency room of a hospital, where a screaming man is being held in custody. Dr. Hill agrees to listen to his story. The man identifies himself as doctor, and he recounts, in flashback, the events leading up to his arrest and arrival at the hospital:

In Santa Mira, California, Dr. Miles Bennell sees a number of patients suffering from Capgras delusion. Returning from a trip, Miles meets his former girlfriend, Becky Driscoll, who has herself recently come back to town after a recent divorce. Becky's cousin Wilma has the same fear about her Uncle Ira, with whom she lives. Psychiatrist Dr. Dan Kauffman assures Bennell that these cases are merely an "epidemic of mass hysteria".

That same evening, Bennell's friend, Jack Belicec, finds a body with his exact physical features, though it appears not fully developed; later, another body is found in Becky's basement that is her exact duplicate. When Bennell calls Kauffman to the scene, the bodies have mysteriously disappeared, and Kauffman informs Bennell that he is falling for the same hysteria. The following night, Bennell, Becky, Jack, and Jack's wife Teddy again find duplicates of themselves, emerging from giant seed pods in Dr. Bennell's greenhouse. They conclude that the townspeople are being replaced while asleep with exact physical copies. Miles tries to make a long distance call to federal authorities for help, but the phone operator claims that all long-distance lines are busy; Jack and Teddy drive off to seek help in the next town. Bennell and Becky discover that by now all of the town's inhabitants have been replaced and are devoid of humanity; they flee to Bennell's office to hide for the night.

The next morning they see truckloads of the giant pods heading to neighboring towns to be planted and used to replace their populations. Kauffman and Jack, both of whom are "pod people" by now, arrive at Bennell's office and reveal that an extraterrestrial life form is responsible for the invasion. After their takeover, they explain, life loses its frustrating complexity, because all emotions and sense of individuality vanish. Bennell and Becky manage to escape, but are soon pursued by a crowd of "pod people". Exhausted, they manage to hide in an abandoned mine outside of town. Bennell leaves a little later, coming upon a large greenhouse farm, where he discovers giant seed pods being grown by the hundreds. While he is gone, Becky falls asleep and is transformed into one of them. When Bennell kisses her after his return, he realizes, to his horror, what has happened. She then calls out to any pursuing "pod people". Now panicking, Bennell runs and runs, eventually finding himself on a crowded state highway. After seeing a transport truck bound for San Francisco and Los Angeles filled with the pods, he frantically screams at the passing motorists, "They're here already! You're next! You're next!"

As Bennell finishes his story at the hospital, Dr. Hill and the on-duty doctor doubt his account until an injured truck driver, involved in a highway accident, is brought into the emergency room. He was found in his wrecked truck buried under a load of giant seed pods. Both doctors realize that Bennell's story is true, and they immediately call the federal authorities.

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Cast

Production

Novel and screenplay

Jack Finney's novel ends with the extraterrestrials finally leaving Earth after they find that humans are offering strong resistance, despite having little reasonable chance against the alien invasion; the "pod people" have a life span of no more than five years, so five years after taking over the last human being, the invaders would then have to seek out a new world with new life forms as hosts, leaving behind a depopulated Earth.

Budgeting and casting

Invasion of the Body Snatchers was originally scheduled for a 24-day shoot and a budget of US$454,864. The studio later asked Wanger to cut the budget significantly. The producer proposed a shooting schedule of 20 days and a budget of $350,000.

Initially, Wanger considered Gig Young, Dick Powell, Joseph Cotten and several others for the role of Miles. For Becky, he considered casting Anne Bancroft, Donna Reed, Kim Hunter, Vera Miles and others. With the lower budget, however, he abandoned these choices and cast Richard Kiley, who had just starred in The Phenix City Story for Allied Artists. Kiley turned the role down and Wanger cast two relative newcomers in the lead roles: Kevin McCarthy, who had just starred in Siegel's An Annapolis Story, and Dana Wynter, who had done several major dramatic roles on television.

Future director Sam Peckinpah had a small part as Charlie, a meter reader. Peckinpah was a dialogue coach on five Siegel films in the mid-1950s, including this one.

Principal photography

Originally, producer Wanger and Siegel wanted to film Invasion of the Body Snatchers on location in Mill Valley, California, the town just north of San Francisco, that Jack Finney described in his novel. In the first week of January 1955, Siegel, Wanger and screenwriter Daniel Mainwaring visited Finney to talk about the film version and to look at Mill Valley. The location proved too expensive and Siegel with Allied Artist executives found locations resembling Mill Valley in the Los Angeles area, including Sierra Madre, Chatsworth, Glendale, Los Feliz, Bronson and Beachwood Canyons, all of which would make up the town of "Santa Mira" for the film. In addition to these outdoor locations, much of the film was shot in the Allied Artists studio on the east side of Hollywood.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers was shot by cinematographer Ellsworth Fredericks in 23 days between March 23 and April 18, 1955. The cast and crew worked a six-day week with Sundays off. The production went over schedule by three days because of night-for-night shooting that Siegel wanted. Additional photography took place in September 1955, filming a frame story on which the studio had insisted (see Original intended ending). The final budget was $382,190.

Post-production

The project was originally named The Body Snatchers after the Finney serial. However, Wanger wanted to avoid confusion with the 1945 Val Lewton film The Body Snatcher. The producer was unable to come up with a title and accepted the studio's choice, They Come from Another World and that was assigned in summer 1955. Siegel objected to this title and suggested two alternatives, Better Off Dead and Sleep No More, while Wanger offered Evil in the Night and World in Danger. None of these were chosen, and the studio settled on Invasion of the Body Snatchers in late 1955. The film was released at the time in France under the mistranslated title "L'invasion des profanateurs de sépultures" (literally: Invasion of the defilers of tombs), which remains unchanged today.

Wanger wanted to add a variety of speeches and prefaces. He suggested a voice-over introduction for Miles. While the film was being shot, Wanger tried to get permission in England to use a Winston Churchill quotation as a preface to the film. The producer sought out Orson Welles to voice the preface and a trailer for the film. He wrote speeches for Welles' opening on June 15, 1955, and worked to persuade Welles to do it, but was unsuccessful. Wanger considered science fiction author Ray Bradbury instead, but this did not happen, either. Mainwaring eventually wrote the voice-over narration himself.

The studio scheduled three film previews on the last days of June and the first day of July 1955. According to Wanger's memos at the time, the previews were successful. Later reports by Mainwaring and Siegel, however, contradict this, claiming that audiences could not follow the film and laughed in the wrong places. In response the studio removed much of the film's humor, "humanity" and "quality," according to Wanger. He scheduled another preview in mid-August that also did not go well. In later interviews Siegel pointed out that it was studio policy not to mix humor with horror.

Wanger saw the final cut in December 1955 and protested the use of the Superscope aspect ratio. Its use had been included in early plans for the film, but the first print was not made until December. Wanger felt that the film lost sharpness and detail. Siegel originally shot Invasion of the Body Snatchers in the 1.85:1 aspect ratio. Superscope was a post-production laboratory process designed to create an anamorphic print from non-anamorphic source material that would be projected at an aspect ratio of 2.00:1.

Original intended ending

Both Siegel and Mainwaring were satisfied with the film as shot. It was originally meant to end with Miles screaming as truckloads of pods pass him by. The studio, wary of a pessimistic conclusion, insisted on adding a prologue and epilogue to the movie suggesting a more optimistic outcome to the story, which is thus told mainly in flashback. In this version the movie begins with a ranting Bennell in custody in a hospital emergency ward. He then tells an arriving doctor (Whit Bissell) his story. In the closing scene pods are found at a highway accident, confirming his warning. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is notified, possibly in time to save the Earth.

Mainwaring scripted this framing story and Siegel shot it on September 16, 1955, at the Allied Artists studio. In a later interview Siegel complained, "The film was nearly ruined by those in charge at Allied Artists who added a preface and ending that I don't like." In his autobiography Siegel added that "Wanger was very much against this, as was I. However, he begged me to shoot it to protect the film, and I reluctantly consented […]".

While the Internet Movie Database states that the film's original ending had been reinstated for a re-release in 1979, Steve Biodrowski of Cinefantastique magazine claims that the film is still released with the additional footage, including a 2005 screening at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, honoring director Don Siegel.

Though disapproved of by most reviewers, George Turner (in American Cinematographer) and Danny Peary (in Cult Movies) endorsed the subsequently added frame story. Nonetheless, Peary emphasized that the added scenes changed significantly what he saw as the film's original intention (see Themes).

Theatrical release

When the film was released domestically in February 1956, many theaters displayed several pods made of papier-mâché in theater lobbies and entrances, along with large lifelike black and white cutouts of McCarthy and Wynter running away from a crowd. The film made more than $1 million in the first month, and in 1956 alone made more than $2.5 million in the U.S. When the British release (with cuts imposed by the British censors) took place in late 1956, the film earned more than a half million dollars in ticket sales.

Themes

Some reviewers saw in the story a commentary on the dangers facing America for turning a blind eye to McCarthyism,"Leonard Maltin speaks of a McCarthy-era subtext." or of bland conformity in postwar Eisenhower-era America. Others viewed it as an allegory for the loss of personal autonomy in the Soviet Union or communist systems in general. For the BBC, David Wood summarized the circulating popular interpretations of the film as follows: "The sense of post-war, anti-communist paranoia is acute, as is the temptation to view the film as a metaphor for the tyranny of the McCarthy era." Danny Peary in Cult Movies pointed out that the addition of the framing story had changed the film's stance from anti-McCarthyite to anti-communist. Michael Dodd of The Missing Slate has called the movie "one of the most multifaceted horror films ever made", arguing that by "simultaneously exploiting the contemporary fear of infiltration by undesirable elements as well as a burgeoning concern over homeland totalitarianism in the wake of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s notorious communist witch hunt, it may be the clearest window into the American psyche that horror cinema has ever provided".

In An Illustrated History of the Horror Film, Carlos Clarens saw a trend manifesting itself in Science Fiction films, dealing with dehumanization and fear of the loss of individual identity, being historically connected to the end of "the Korean War and the well publicized reports of brainwashing techniques". Comparing Invasion of the Body Snatchers with Robert Aldrich's Kiss Me Deadly and Orson Welles' Touch of Evil, Brian Neve found a sense of disillusionment rather than straightforward messages, with all three films being "less radical in any positive sense than reflective of the decline of [the screenwriters'] great liberal hopes".

Despite a general agreement among film critics regarding these political connotations of the film, actor Kevin McCarthy said in an interview included on the 1998 DVD release that he felt no political allegory was intended. The interviewer stated that he had spoken with the author of the novel, Jack Finney, who professed no specific political allegory in the work. DVD commentary track, quoted in Feo Amante's homepage.

In his autobiography, I Thought We Were Making Movies, Not History, Walter Mirisch writes: "People began to read meanings into pictures that were never intended. The Invasion of the Body Snatchers is an example of that. I remember reading a magazine article arguing that the picture was intended as an allegory about the communist infiltration of America. From personal knowledge, neither Walter Wanger nor Don Siegel, who directed it, nor Dan Mainwaring, who wrote the script nor original author Jack Finney, nor myself saw it as anything other than a thriller, pure and simple."

Don Siegel spoke more openly of an existing allegorical subtext, but denied a strictly political point of view: "[…] I felt that this was a very important story. I think that the world is populated by pods and I wanted to show them. I think so many people have no feeling about cultural things, no feeling of pain, of sorrow. […] The political reference to Senator McCarthy and totalitarianism was inescapable but I tried not to emphasize it because I feel that motion pictures are primarily to entertain and I did not want to preach." Film scholar J. P. Telotte wrote that Siegel intended for pods to be seductive; their spokesperson, a psychiatrist, was chosen to provide an authoritative voice that would appeal to the desire to "abdicate from human responsibility in an increasingly complex and confusing modern world."

Reaction

Critical reception

Largely ignored by critics on its initial run, Invasion of the Body Snatchers received wide critical acclaim in retrospect and is considered one of the best films of 1956. The film holds a 98% "Fresh" rating at the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes.

In recent years, critics such as Dan Druker, Chicago Reader have hailed the film as a "genuine Sci-Fi classic". (Leonard Maltin) described Invasion of the Body Snatchers as "influential, and still very scary". Time Out called the film, one of the "most resonant" and "one of the simplest" of the genre.

Legacy

Invasion of the Body Snatchers was selected in 1994 for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". In June 2008, the American Film Institute revealed its "Ten top Ten" â€" the best ten films in ten "classic" American film genres â€" after polling more than 1,500 people from the creative community. Invasion of the Body Snatchers was acknowledged as the ninth best film in the science fiction genre. The film was also placed on AFI's AFI's 100 Years ... 100 Thrills, a list of America's most heart-pounding films. The film was included on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments. Similarly, the Chicago Film Critics Association named it the 29th scariest film ever made. Time magazine included Invasion of the Body Snatchers on their list of 100 all-time best films, the top 10 1950s Sci-Fi Movies, and Top 25 Horror Films.

DVD releases

The film was released on DVD in 1998 by U.S.-label Republic (an identical re-release by Artisan followed in 2002); it includes the Superscope version plus a 1.375:1 Academy ratio version. The latter is not the original full frame edition, but a pan and scan reworking of the Superscope edition that loses visual detail.

DVD editions exist on the British market (including a computer colorized version), German market (as Die Dämonischen) and Spanish market (as La Invasión de los Ladrones de Cuerpos).

Olive Films released a Blu-ray Disc Superscope version of the film in 2012.

Related works

Listed are only works directly connected to Jack Finney's novel or Don Siegel's film, not thematically related works like Robert Heinlein's The Puppet Masters and its dramatizations, Val Guest's Quatermass 2 or Gene Fowler's I Married a Monster from Outer Space.

• Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978 remake directed by Philip Kaufman starring Donald Sutherland)
• Invasion of the Bunny Snatchers (1992 Looney Tunes parody directed by Greg Ford starring Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, and Porky Pig (in drum ending))
• Body Snatchers (1993 remake directed by Abel Ferrara)
• The Invasion (2007 remake directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel starring Nicole Kidman)

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A personal budget is a finance plan that allocates future personal income towards expenses, savings and debt repayment. Past spending and personal debt are considered when creating a personal budget. There are several methods and tools available for creating, using and adjusting a personal budget. For example, jobs are an income source, while bills and rent payments are expenses.

Sample budget

A budget allocates or distributes expected income to expected expenses and intended savings. The following sample illustrates how income might be allocated.

Average annual expenses (2014) per household in the United States are:

How to Make a Budget in Excel - Part 1

Tools

A variety of tools are helpful for constructing a personal budget. Regardless of the tool used, a budget's usefulness relies on the accuracy and currency of the data. Computer generated budgets have become commonly used as they replace the need to rewrite and recalculate the budget every time there is a change.

Pencil and paper

A simple budget can be written on a piece of a paper with a pencil and, optionally, a calculator. Such budgets can be organized in ring binders or a file cabinet. Simpler still are pre-formatted budgeting books or bookkeeping forms in which a budget can be created by filling in the blanks.

Spreadsheet software

Spreadsheet software allows budgeting by performing calculations using formulas, for example in keeping track of income and expenditure. A drawback of budget spreadsheets is that some do not offer date-shifting, so information has to be reentered or moved at the end of each month.

Money-management software

Some software is written specifically for money management. Products such as MoneyWiz, Fortora Fresh Finance, Moneydance, Quicken, Microsoft Money (discontinued), and GnuCash are designed to keep track of individual account information, such as checking, savings or money-market accounts. These programs can categorize past expenses and display monthly reports that are useful for budgeting future months.

Money-management websites

Several websites, such as Mint.com and Housebudgetplanner.com and FamBudge by Socuis have been devised to help manage personal finances. Some may have a privacy policy governing the use and sharing of supplied financial information.

Spending-management software

Spending-management software is a variation of money-management software. Unlike typical budgeting that allocates future personal income towards expenses, savings and debt repayment, this type of software utilizes a known amount of money, the cash on hand, to give the user information regarding what is left to spend in the current month. This method eliminates some of the guesswork associated with forecasting what a person might receive for income when it comes to allocating budgeted money. Like money-management software, some spending-management software packages can connect to online bank accounts in order to retrieve a current status report.

Concepts

Personal budgeting, while not particularly difficult, tends to carry a negative connotation among many consumers. Sticking to a few basic concepts helps to avoid several common pitfalls of budgeting.

Purpose

A budget should have a purpose or defined goal that is achieved within a certain time period. Knowing the source and amount of income and the amounts allocated to expense events are as important as when those cash flow events occur.

Simplicity

The more complicated the budgeting process is, the less likely a person is to keep up with it. The purpose of a personal budget is to identify where income and expenditure is present in the common household; it is not to identify each individual purchase ahead of time. How simplicity is defined with regards to the use of budgeting categories varies from family to family, but many small purchases can generally be lumped into one category (Car, Household items, etc.).

Flexibility

The budgeting process is designed to be flexible; the consumer should have an expectation that a budget will change from month to month, and will require monthly review. Cost overruns in one category of a budget should in the next month be accounted for or prevented. For example, if a family spends $40 more than they planned on food in spite of their best efforts, next month's budget should reflect an approximate $40 increase and corresponding decrease in other parts of the budget.

"Busting the budget" is a common pitfall in personal budgeting; frequently busting the budget can allow consumers to fall into pre-budgeting spending habits. Anticipating budget-busting events (and underspending in other categories), and modifying the budget accordingly, allows consumers a level of flexibility with their incomes and expenses.

Budgeting for irregular income

Special precautions need to be taken for families operating on an irregular income. Households with an irregular income should keep two common major pitfalls in mind when planning their finances: spending more than their average income, and running out of money even when income is on average.

Clearly, a household's need to estimate their average (yearly) income is paramount; spending, which will be relatively constant, needs to be maintained below that amount. A budget being an approximate estimation, room for error should always be allowed so keeping expenses 5% or 10% below the estimated income is a prudent approach. When done correctly, households should end any given year with about 5% of their income left over. Of course, the better the estimates, the better the results will be.

To avoid running out of money because expenses occur before the money actually arrives (known as a cash flow problem in business jargon) a "safety cushion" of excess cash (to cover those months when actual income is below estimations) should be established. There is no easy way to develop a safety cushion, so families frequently have to spend less than they earn until they have accumulated a cushion. This can be a challenging task particularly when starting during a low spot in the earning cycle, although this is how most budgets begin. In general, households that start out with expenses that are 5% or 10% below their average income should slowly develop a cushion of savings that can be accessed when earnings are below average. Whether this rate of building a cushion is fast enough for a given financial situation depends on how variable income is, and whether the budgeting process starts at a high or low point during the earnings cycles.

Allocation guidelines

There are several guidelines to use when allocating money for a budget as well. Past spending is one of the most important priorities; a critical step in most personal budgeting strategies involves keeping track of expenses via receipts over the past month so that spending for the month can be reconciled with budgeted spending for the next month. Any of the following allocation guidelines may be used; choose one that will work well with your situation.

The 60% Solution

The 60% Solution is a budgeting system created by former MSN Money's editor-in-chief, Richard Jenkins. The name "The 60% Solution" originates from Jenkins' suggestion on spending 60% of a household's gross income (before taxes) on fixed expenses. Fixed expenses includes federal, state and Social Security taxes, insurance, regular bills and living expenses- like food and clothing, car and house payments.

The other 40% breaks down as follows, with 10% allocated to each category:

• Retirement: Money set aside into an IRA or 401(k).
• Long-term savings: Money set aside for car purchases, major home fix-ups, or to pay down substantial debt loads.
• Irregular expenses: Vacations, major repair bills, new appliances, etc.
• Fun money: Money set aside for entertainment purposes.

If an individual has a high amount of non-mortgage debt, Jenkins advises that the 20% apportioned to retirement and long-term savings be directed towards paying off debt; once the debt is paid off, the 20% (Retirement + Savings) is to be immediately redirected back into the original categories. According to Jenkins, tracking each individual expense is unnecessary, as the balance of his primary checking account is roughly equivalent to the amount of money that can be spent in this plan.

Software designed to easily set up and track a 60% Solution Budget is built into the "deluxe" and higher versions of Microsoft Money 2007 and Microsoft Money Plus.

Housing as 25% of spendable income

Another allocation principle is that housing expenses (mortgage or rent) should be limited to 25% of spendable income. This rule of thumb especially applies to families moving to new housing; if a house payment for a $300,000 house, plus taxes, will result in a $2,000 monthly mortgage bill, will it take up too large a portion of the budget? (To calculate, find income level, tax rate and mortgage interest rate.)

In housing markets with exceptionally high prices, such as California, New York City, or Boston, Massachusetts, in the early 2000s, this rule of thumb may be difficult to follow. A high percentage of income spent on housing will necessitate lower percentages in other categories.

One of the critical factors that many people overlook during the budgeting process is the "supplier-replacement cost-cutting technique". This is the process of scrutinizing each current expenditure, comparison shopping and replacing with a lower cost, equal quality alternative. The newfound savings is then reapplied to debt, savings accounts and enjoyment spending.

Following a budget

Once a budget is constructed and the proper amounts are allocated to their proper categories, the focus for personal budgeting turns to following the budget. As with allocation, there are various methods available for following a budget.

Envelopes

Envelope Accounting or the Envelope System is a method of budgeting where on a regular basis (i.e. monthly, biweekly, etc.) a certain amount of money is set aside for a specific purpose, or category, in an envelope marked for that purpose. Then anytime you make a purchase you look in the envelope for the type of purchase being considered to see if there are sufficient funds to make the purchase. If the money is there, all is well. Otherwise, you have three options: 1) you do not make the purchase; 2) you wait until you can allocate more money to that envelope; 3) you sacrifice another category by moving money from its associated envelope. The flip side is true as well, if you do not spend everything in the envelope this month then the next allocation adds to what is already there resulting in more money for the next month.

With envelope budgeting, the amount of money left to spend in a given category can be calculated at any time by counting the money in the envelope. Optionally, each envelope can be marked with the amount due each month (if a bill is known ahead of time) and the due date for the bill.

Spreadsheet budgeting with date-shifting

Budget spreadsheets with date-shifting typically offer a detailed view of a 12-month, income and expense, plan. A good way to follow and manage a budget when using a spreadsheet that offers date-shifting is to set the current month a few months before the current month along the 12-month cycle, month 4 for example. In this way previous expenses and results can be viewed when creating or adjusting the budgeting planning.

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This is a list of U.S. state government budgets as enacted by each state's legislature. Note that a number of states have a two year or three year budget (e.g.: Kentucky) while others have a one year budget (e.g.: Massachusetts).

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