Facebook and Comic Republic have announced the launch of #NoFalseNewsZone online comic book, an exciting and educational comic series designed to help people think critically about the messages they see and read online. The series helps readers to identify false news and what they can do to help minimise its spread.

The online comic book, which comes in a three-part series will feature the stories of an experienced nurse, an intern reporter and a university student who are on their personal journey to educate people on how to curb false news, and also join the fight against misinformation to help create a #NoFalseNewsZone online.

“Facebook is excited to launch its #NoFalseNewsZone online comic book in collaboration with Comic Republic. We’ve come up with relatable and exciting stories to keep people entertained as we educate them on how to minimise its spread,” Oluwasola Obagbemi, Facebook’s Corporate Communications Manager for Anglophone West Africa said, while commenting on the launch. “As a pioneer of innovation for human connection through social presence, Facebook has given people the power to build communities and bring the world closer together in new and profound ways. Our hope is that with this online comic book, people will make informed decisions by thinking critically about what they read, trust and share,” Obagbemi added.

Speaking on the collaboration, Comic Republic CEO, Jide Martin said: “In a world where we are online for everything essential, it is now critical that we protect our new reality. More than ever, with just one tap online, you can either make or mar a life. As such, we must all be accountable for the information we share on social media. Comic Republic’s mission is rooted in storytelling for a cause, so the #NoFalseNewsZone campaign is right up our alley and such a thrill to work on. I urge people to read and pass it on but most of all, really think before you share unverified messages with their contacts. We don’t need superpowers to do good.”

To download the #NoFalseNewsZone comic series, visit:

https://www.thecomicrepublic.com/site/web/NoFalseNewsZoneviewer.html?file=NoFalseNewsZone_facebook_October_2021_Comic_Republic_Web.pdf

Guests at hotels appreciate how they are treated and how their experience was at a particular place. When dealing with a resort, you need to employ these tactics to attract and maintain your clients. A resort is a place people go for a vacation to relax and have fun. Most resorts provide an all-inclusive for visitors that is food, lodging, and some other expenses. But how do you attract more people to your resort amid all the competition? 

Well, in this post, we focus on helping you to know ways of getting more guests to your fancy resort; buckle up. 

Go All in With the Architecture

Yes, the most significant way to lure those travellers is by building your resort with appealing architecture. Who doesn’t want to be in an impressive building for their holiday? Invest in good architectural companies that will blow your prospects’ minds making them unable to resist it. Tourists like taking photos of the places they visit, especially for social media influencers. If your resort is appealing enough to be part of their content, they will choose your resort over others. 

The design of the building should also include spacious ensuite rooms for your guest’s comfort. 

Spare No Expenses With Decor

The decor is an essential element in your resort. You can only entertain high-end guests if your decor is on point, which means, hire the best interior designers in the game to make your resort outshine its competitors. Also, design is not limited to the interior only; partner with renowned landscapers to transform your outdoors. Since it is a vacation destination, the outdoors play a vital role in maintaining your clients. 

Include a custom made pool that fits the overall design of the premises. The pool doesn’t have to be regular; ensure you add some eccentric shape, a hot tub, music, lighting, unique furniture to match, an infinity edge, among others. When installing electrical components, ensure you keep them safely in waterproof metal enclosures to void any accidents. 

Strategic Marketing 

Marketing is a crucial part of any business; hence, experts who understand the industry and the market well should be led by experts. Tourism is a global industry bringing in revenue to various countries. Although there might be good seasons and bad ones, it will never go out of business. For this reason, investing in your marketing team will propel your resort ahead of your competitors. 

Advertise the resort on television and radio, to reach more local people. You can also use travelling-based magazines and LED displays. Lastly, use social media. Social media has made marketing a bit easy since you only require to hire the right influencers to market your resort. You can pay them for the advert or offer them an all-inclusive free vacation on the condition they market for you. 

Recreational Areas and Activities

Make your resort stand out from the rest by offering additional recreational areas and activities. Resorts are meant for relaxation and fun, and if you add more fun to them, they will be the most preferred. Have a spa area that includes saunas, tanning areas, massages, pedicures and manicures, yoga, etc. These additional elements will be a plus for you, and you will attract more tourists. 

Activities like kayaking, zip-lining, surfing, snorkelling, diving, and so on will keep your visitors engaged while staying at your resort. Incorporate a dock system to create a seamless transition from the water to land. Plastic floating docks are the best.

Offer the Best Services in the Market

You might be wondering why some outstanding hotels do not have as many guests as expected; well, worry no more. It all comes down to the service. How you treat your guest will either make or break your business regardless of its size. Incorporate good values into your staff and ensure they follow the letter. People will never forget how you made them feel more than how the place looked. 

Good services include respect for guests, listening to their grievances, responding quickly and accordingly, and offering what you agreed on during reservations. Some of these may seem minor, but they will contribute to how your guests perceive the resort. 

Create an Online Presence

In this day and age, having a stable online presence will work best for your business. Build a website for your resort and include all the services offered to your guest. Optimize the website well to create seamless navigation whenever prospects are browsing. Remember to include pricing, rooms, advantages and setbacks, recreations available, and other crucial information guests might need. 

Be transparent to help you build trust in the market. Do not display a product or service that is not available as this will create doubt in your guest, and they will fail to book in the future. 

Conclusion 

It is not an easy job to please people, especially now that many have been exposed to various outstanding features worldwide. Guests want a comfortable place to stay while having their vacation. Be a provider who meets all the needs of what the market demands. Integrate the above guidelines into your resort and stay on top of the game. Your rivals will be nowhere near you since you will get all the high-end guests. 

If you’ve been paying attention to the real estate market recently, you’ll know that the seller’s market, which was strong before the pandemic began, has only increased since the start of COVID-19.

This means home prices are high and buyer competition is fierce. If you’re thinking of selling your home in the near future, you may want to consider putting your home on the market sooner rather than later because, while no one expects these conditions to disappear overnight, the coming months may invite more inventory to the market, as well as lower home prices.

Buyers are still highly incentivized

If you’re a seller, there’s certainly no need to rush. As the economy reopens and strengthens, buyers know the days of low mortgage rates — a factor that drove them to the market in waves — may be ending.

Many buyers are relying on these low mortgage rates to afford a home, despite prices being rather high.

Buyers will be locking in these rates and rushing to the market to take advantage before it’s too late. Sellers, you’ll want to take advantage while buyers are still highly incentivized to enter the market and competition is still high, as it may not last much longer.

Home prices are still high, but bidding wars are on the decline

In HomeLight’s Summer / Fall Report, real estate agents across the country noted that prices are still high, however buyers may be at their breaking point. In fact, realtors across the country have noticed buyers dropping out of deals at the last moment.

Due to the competitive nature of the market, buyers are having to bid over asking price in order to win the home of their dreams. Once they’ve made a deal, they’re left to ponder their decision and rethink whether such a lofty investment is truly worth it.

This often leads to sellers lowering their home price, as now there’s a stigma that something is wrong with the property. Realtors are encouraging their sellers not to get too greedy. If the bid on your home is too astronomical, you may find buyers drop out at the last minute.

Moreover, bidding wars are starting to diminish. While realtors were reporting about 20-plus bids per listing earlier in the year, the average listing now only receives about 5 bids.

While prices are still high compared to normal market conditions, these trends may indicate that buyers may see home prices drop in the coming months.

Inventory may soon return to the market

The main reason for such high home prices? Low inventory. Since most sellers were wary of entering the market during the pandemic, there simply was not enough inventory to match buyer demand. Thus, home prices skyrocketed.

Now that the vaccine is available to all who want it, sellers feel more secure and are beginning to enter back into the market. If you want to sell for the best price, contact your real estate agent in order to take advantage of the favorable market conditions.

Huawei has announced the winners of the 2021 edition of the Huawei HMS App Innovation Contest (Apps UP), with four African Apps being recognised and celebrated. Coresthetics walked away with one of the Best App Awards in the Middle East and Africa region, along with $15,000 in prize money.

UniAPS bagged an Excellent Student Award, with $5,000 prize money, while Droppa and Secura received Honourable Mention Awards, which each come with $3,000 prize money.

“The Apps UP contest is a great initiative from Huawei, and I hope that we continue to encourage App developers to make Apps that are beneficial to society.  One piece of advice that I have for developers would be to think more about your onboarding experience, and let users test it out to see what the App does and understand the problems they may face,” said Ahmad Abugosh,an Apps UP MEA judge and Director of Marketing & Learning Programs, AstroLabs Middle East & Africa.

Other award winners include Real Car Race Game 3D: Fun New Car Games 2020, LittleAstro, and Scary Teacher 3D, each winning a Best Game Award, while Blind Assistant, Limit, and Emergency Buddy conquered the Best Social Impact App Award category. These winners will each be rewarded with $15,000.

The 2021 edition of Apps UP witnessed over 2,100 individuals and teams from over 170 countries entering the contest. All submissions were carefully evaluated based on their innovation, social value, business value, and User Experience (UX) by a jury consisting of leading regional industry experts. The competition concluded on October 10 with the public voting stage; public votes accounted for 10% of the final results. App submissions were seamless, intelligent, innovative, and they contributed to the robustness of HUAWEI AppGallery.

The winners of the eight categories were:

• Best App Award ($15,000 each): WashyWash, Handyman Calculation, and Coresthetics.
• Best Game Award ($15,000 each): Real Car Race Game 3D: Fun New Car Games 2020, LittleAstro, and Scary Teacher 3D.
• Best Social Impact App Award ($15,000 each): Blind Assistant, Limit, and Emergency Buddy.
• Excellent Student Award ($5,000 each): Handyman Calculator, UniAPS, and The Muslim Diary
• Honourable Mention Award ($3,000 each): Quran University an Educational Online Learning, STEPPI, Droppa, Secura, and MyTV+.
• Tech Women’s Award ($5,000 each):
• Best HMS Core Innovation Award ($5,000 each): Blind Assistant, Limit, and Mobile Gamepad.
• All-Scenario Coverage Award ($5,000 each):

Adam Xiao, Managing Director, HMS and Consumer Cloud Service for HUAWEI Consumer Business Group MEA, said, “Creating functional, smooth, and intelligent applications is not an easy task, and through Huawei HMS App Innovation Contest (Apps UP), we aim to reward the developer industry for their outstanding contribution. This year’s competition was extraordinary due to the quality of apps submitted, and the new categories added garnered tremendous interest, particularly the Women’s Tech Award that saw over 600 submissions. We want to congratulate all the winners for their impressive submissions that aim to benefit our societies in different areas.”

The 2021 edition of the Huawei HMS App Innovation Contest (Apps UP) was launched in June and lasted more than 100 days. Submissions came in from all regions including China, Asia-Pacific, Europe, Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. The competition’s total prize pool amounted to US$1 million, with a reward of US$200,000 in cash prizes for each participating region.

To learn more, and to stay tuned to latest competition and developer updates, please visit https://developer.huawei.com/consumer/en/

Johnnie Walker, Ghana’s number one iconic whisky brand has headlined the much-anticipated Exclusive Men of the Year Africa Awards (EMY Africa Awards), held at Kempinski Hotel in Accra on 16th October, 2021.

The EMY Africa Awards is a prestigious award ceremony that was established in 2015 to honor and celebrate individuals who have demonstrated good values, distinguished themselves in their diverse fields of endeavor and are committed to societal progress.

As the title sponsor of the awards, Guinness Ghana, a Diageo Company, custodians of the Johnnie Walker brand, had the sole honor of presenting the coveted Man of the Year Award to Mr Daniel McKorley, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of McDan Group of Companies, with a personalized bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue Label, the scotch of all scotch.

Speaking at the event, Lesego Lebogang Mohale, Category Marketing Manager (International Premium Spirits, Reserve, Mainstream Spirits &RTDs), Guinness Ghana said, “What Johnnie Walker stands for is pushing boundaries in the pursuit of collective progress. We are inspired by individuals who have emotional drive and optimism to keep walking. People who are stepping beyond the usual to create and pursue something better to make life richer for All. This partnership with the EMY Awards gives us an opportunity to celebrate these individuals who are reaching for greatness, pushing boundaries and taking bold steps forward”.

Johnnie Walker is Ghana’s number one Whisky brand, and the most widely distributed brand of blended Scotch whisky in the world. It is perfect for moments of celebration and a luxurious gift for occasions big and small. Drink responsibly. Johnnie Walker is not recommended to persons under 18 and pregnant women.

Huawei is offering you amazing deals when you buy any of these Huawei products. Buy a Y5p, Band 6, Freebuds 4i or a Watch Fit and enjoy instant gifts ranging from Mini Portable fans, Huawei Pens, Stainless Steel Bottles and Gift Boxes.

Buy Y5p and Get a beautiful customized Huawei Pen

With a 5.45-inch HD bezel-less FullView Display, HUAWEI Y5p offers an immersive viewing experience. Its compact body is ideal for single-hand operation, allowing you to grab the splendid enjoyment in your hand and discover more wonders, all wrapped in one wide screen. Get the Huawei Y5p now for GHS 599

Buy Band 6 and Get a mini portable fan

Keeping track of your heart rate is one of the best things you can do for your fitness and health as you go by your daily activities. The TruSeen™ 4.0 heart rate monitoring technology on the Huawei Band 6 uses an optical lens and AI-based data processing to accurately monitor your heart rate 24 hours a day. Be alerted instantly when your heart rate drops below or rises above safe levels. With just GHS 359 you can still maintain a healthy lifestyle on a budget with Huawei Band 6.

Buy  Freebuds 4i and Get a stainless steel bottle

You don’t have to take off your earbuds to let in the ambient sound and communicate with others easily. With Huawei Freebuds 4i, just press the earbud and hold down to switch to Awareness Mode. The sensors in HUAWEI FreeBuds 4i actively detect and reduce ambient noise.

HUAWEI FreeBuds 4i also has remarkable endurance. It can play music for 10 hours continuously on a full charge and also gives you 4 hours’ audio enjoyment from a 10-minute charge – perfect when you’re in a hurry. For only GHS 429 you can grab yourself a Freebuds 4i.

Buy Huawei Watch Fit and get a gift box

Going about our daily activities at our various workplaces can be stressful. HUAWEI TruRelax™ technology and all-day stress tracking algorithm can effectively monitor your stress levels to see if you are feeling tense. Try to follow the suggested guided breathing exercises to release your stress when you are stressed out.

HUAWEI WATCH FIT is also the perfect smartwatch that blends technology with fashion.  With just GHS 569 you can match your fashion style whilst keeping fit with this smart watch.