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With food wastage in many hospitals estimated at up to 30% of the costs of the service, most of it plate waste, there has to be every incentive to do better. It is impossible to contemplate the potential role of marketing and the introduction of better choice and quality of meals without first appreciating the totally unnatural environment in which the bulk of hospital meals are chosen and consumed.

The characteristics of millions of SMEs, the way they operate, the growing employment they sustain, their collective influence over the quality of tourism products and destinations, and how to influence their development is arguably the most important issue for European tourism as we approach the millennium. This paper is based on a three‐day conference, Agenda 2010, convened by the Wales Tourist Board (WTB) and held at Llandudno in May 1998 during the UK Presidency of the EU. The meeting, supported by DGXXIII and the Welsh Office, was designed to highlight the contribution of Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) to European tourism and make recommendations for facilitating and supporting their activities in the future. SMEs are defined by the EC as businesses employing less than 250 employees although the great majority in tourism employ less than 10. Most readers will know that DGXXIII has separate responsibilities within the EC for SMEs and for tourism.

Sponsored by the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) (1), the World Travel & Tourism Environment Research Centre (WTTERC) is an independent research unit launched in September 1991 by the Hon. Michael Howard Q.C, M.P, then UK Secretary of State for Employment. The initiative reflects the growing concern within the travel and tourism industry to manage its environmental impacts and maximise its potential to bring about environmental improvement. Based within Oxford Brookes University and with a global remit, WTTERC aims to “monitor assess and communicate effective environment strategies, objectives and programmes for world travel and tourism”.

It is possible to isolate five points in the hospital system where caterers may plan to make a positive, caring impact upon patients treated as responsive customers. Only one of these five points deals with the preparation and production of food and beverages and their taste and quality.

Normally in a restaurant, or more particularly, in a cafeteria, customers expect to choose a meal from the choice available at a particular time. In hospitals, it is quite usual for patients to be required to choose a meal 24 hours or more in advance, in order to accommodate their wishes to the dominant system.

This Conference, which focussed on tourism within the wider context of leisure and recreation, received and listened to thirty papers and contributions, and discussed the issues raised in meetings of working groups concerned respectively with research and consultancy, tourist organizations, enterprises, education and training. To summarize these contributions and deliberations, to draw together so many diverse threads and, more importantly, to represent even a broad concensus among more than one hundred and fifty participants from twenty‐eight countries, has been a daunting task. This summing up was made to participants at the conclusion of the Conference on Friday 19 September and agreed with small modifications, which are incorporated below.

The tourism product has been described as the amalgam of all activities, involved in by a tourist in the process of his journey. In his own words, David Jeffries described the tourist product as a “Tourist Package” which includes attractions, facilities, transportation etc. Supporting this opinion, Medlik and Middleton described a tourism product as a “complete experience from the time the tourist leaves home to the time he returns to it”. But analysing further a tourism product, one tends to equate it with the normal industrial product, such as electronic appliances or even a loaf of bread which necessity of man demands.

Baron et al. briefly summarized the history of human performance modeling¹ (HPM) in their 1990 review. The application of control theory to aircraft simulations and the development of task network models stimulated the development of methods to represent the human contribution to system dynamics. These groundbreaking efforts first identified the manifold difficulties associated with the simulation of human performance in military settings, and many of these difficulties remain matters of contemporary concern. The technical challenges associated with the representation of human performance have endured, and military applications continue to be a major driver of interest in HBR. The expense and various difficulties associated with laboratory research, field studies, and operational tests have pushed modeling and simulation to center stage as an affordable alternative to empirical studies. Simulation is now an essential component of military force development, operational planning, engineering development and acquisition, and training.

Separate microprocessor control of axis movements adds speed and accuracy to the latest generation of co‐ordinate measuring machines from LK Tool Company. The company has also built a horizontal machine with a carbon fibre composite spindle of novel design.

This article summarizes first findings of a study of labour productivity in tourism undertaken by the author for British Tourist Authority / English Tourist Board Research Services in late 1986.