Chapter 10 Hotel & Lodging Operations 10 13 17 PDF

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Chapter 10: Hotel & Lodging Operations

10/13/17

Lodging Operations ● Whether 100 rooms or over 5,000 rooms, functions remain essentially the same ● Size does affect how responsibilities are separated (staffing) ● Hotels are generally divided into 3 major functional areas Hotel Operations ● Rooms Division - Includes Front Desk, Reservations, Uniformed Services (Security), and Housekeeping ● Food/Beverage Dept - Includes restaurants, bars, banquets, and room service ● Staff/Support Dept - Includes accounting, engineering, marketing, human resources and contracted areas Rooms Division ● Heart of the hotel ● Main business of the hotel and main source of revenue ● Rooms can contribute 70% or more to overall revenue and even more to profit ● The center of activity in the rooms division is the front office ● It is overseen by the Resident Manager and various dept heads (or assistant GM) ● Responsibilities include checking guests in, checking them out, securing payment, listening to complaints, communicating with other depts, determining room availability, and selling additional rooms Reservations Dept ● Reservations can be made by the guest via other methods (more online) but many requests are still made through the hotel reservations dept ● Reservations must maintain contact with other depts as well as other reservation channels to be able to forecast available rooms ● The Reservations Dept attempts to maximize - Room rate - Occupancy rate ● This is known as yield managements - maximizing these two at any given time

● Reservations depts must consider city-wide events, competition, minimum stays, etc. *ADR- average daily rate *RevPar- revenue per available room Housekeeping ● The essential requirement that guests have is to be able to check into a clean room ● The housekeeping dept is responsible for cleaning of guest rooms, stocking essential supplies and amenities, laundry (sometimes) and maintenance of public areas ● Housekeeping is one of the largest depts in the hotel (up to 50% of all employees)

The executive housekeeper is the head of the dept he/she must be adept at scheduling, coordinating, managing people, etc. Room attendants are responsible for cleaning of individual guest rooms Housekeepers work from a room's report, which provides them with the status of all guest rooms from which they can prioritize their work ● The housekeeping dept must know at any given time, the occupancy of the hotel, the number of guests checking in, the number of guests checking out, the number of guests staying over, late checkouts, etc. ● Rooms can take as little as 15 minutes or as long as an hour to clean and prepare for the next guest ● Check-in and check-out times are based in large part on the time it takes to clean a room

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Uniformed Services ● The Uniformed Service Dept is another important dept in the rooms division ● It consists of the bell staff, valet, security, and concierge ● The bell staff assists with luggage, acts as an escort, and answers questions ● The valet assists with parking ● The concierge is the resident expert in activities, events, restaurants, and attractions ● The position of concierge is becoming more important as hotels try to offer a higher level of guest services ● There is an international association for concierges (Les Chefs d’Or) ● Sometimes this responsibility falls to the bell staff or the front desk clerks in smaller hotels Security

● With crime increasing in many cities, (particularly downtown areas), security is becoming increasingly important ● Hotels are required to provide “reasonable care” of their guests which include general security, locks and lighting, and security of guests belongings ● New security measures that have been introduced in recent years include - In-room safes - Keyless locks (with magstrips) - Tighter security at the front desk ● Redesigned hotels where guests (and others) must pass through the lobby Food & Beverage ● The food and beverage dept can contribute 15 to 20% of overall revenue ● It should be a profit center but does not always make money for the hotel ● This dept is headed up by a food and service manager who oversees both the front-of-the-house and back-of-the-house functions ● Bars, room service, food production, and stewarding are other areas ● Banquets- often profitable for hotels - Can support meetings and conferences or outside functions ● Some hotels are limiting what they offer and others are outsourcing Staff & Support Departments Sales and Marketing ● Responsible for “creating customers” ● Largely revolves around selling “blocks” of rooms ● Can be a large dept in convention hotels specialized by market...