Reception operations and services

The lodging industry

Hotels can be classified in different ways : Commercial hotels, airport hotels, suite hotels, extended stay hotels ext. The reason for this, is that different hotels, cater for different types of guests, all with different types of needs. Commercial hotels are located in down town/business districts, and they mostly cater for business travellers. Resort hotels are planned destinations/vacation spots, located in mountains, islands ext. Away from residential areas.

The service we render, is not a physical thing, but rather a action or deed.It is intangible, you can't touch, taste or return a service. Guests can only take away the memories of their experience. That is why it should be powerful, clear and precise. All hotels/establishments have certain standards, and by keeping up these standards, quality becomes reality.

Hotel organization

A hotel is a very complex and unique structure, and takes a lot of people, teamwork and good management to be a success and exceed the expectations of it's guests.A hotel is made up of different departments, each with it's own responsibility. The operating departments are the revenue centres, they sell goods or services to guests, thus generating revenue for the hotel.
Support centres, also known as, cost centres, include housekeeping, accounting, engineering, maintenance and human resources. They generate direct revenue, but provide support for the hotels' revenue centres.

Front office operations

The guest cycle

Pre-arrival : Reservations
Arrival: Registration, uniformed service by desk agents
Occupancy: Occupancy service
Departure: Check-out and uniformed service


Reservations

Reservations is the first step of communication between the guest and a staff member of your establishment, and is absolutely vital, because it's the first impression the guest has of your company standards and that is when the expectation is set.

Their are different types of reservations: Guaranteed, prepayment, credit card, advance deposit, travel agent, voucher, corporate, non-guaranteed.
To make a reservation you need the following information : guests' name, address, telephone number, company name, date of arrival/departure, type and number of rooms requested, method of payment and any special requests.

There are a lot of reports that can be generated from reservation data, like: reservation transactions report, commission agent report, turn away report and revenue forecast report. Other useful documents are, arrival lists, departure lists, in-house lists and reservations history.


Registration

Steps of the registration process:

Pre-registration, creating the registration record, assigning the room and rate, establishing method of payment, issuing room key, fulfilling special requests.

Pre-registration activities help accelerate the process, guests can only verify/double check if information is correct and sign.

Computerized systems makes the whole process a lot faster and more effective. Settling accounts on check-out is fast and the system automatically updates the system and room status report. Communication between front office and housekeeping is also more effective.

Front office responsibilities

Working in the front office department/front desk, you have a lot of responsibilities and tasks that needs to be done, to ensure customer satisfaction and to make sure by following the correct procedures, all allocated tasks are dealt with, such as:

• Delivery of mail, messages and faxes
• handling guests' accounts and folios
• observe all persons entering and exiting hotel
• dealing with complaints and compliments
• dealing with guests inquiries
• ensure guest and staff safety
• making bookings for activities
• allocating rooms and issuing room keys
  

Glossary - Reception

Working in all the different departments of the hotel industry, you learn and use a lot of different and helpful terminology, to speed up the work process and keep up the standard and professionalism of your company. These are some of the terms we use in the front office department:

Account - A form in which financial data are accumulated and summarized.
Account aging - A method for tracking past due accounts according to the date the charges originated.
Account receivable - An amount owed to the hotel.
Account receivable ledger - A grouping of accounts receivable, including the guest ledger and the city ledger.
Adjoining - Rooms with a common wall but no connecting door.
Adjacent rooms - Rooms close to each other, such as across the hall.
American plan - A billing arrangement under which room charges include the guestroom and three meals.
Auditing - The process of verifying front office accounting records as to accuracy and completeness.
Back of house - The functional areas of a hotel in which personnel have little or no direct guest contact, such as the engineering, accounting and human resources.
Block- An agreed-upon number of rooms set aside for members of a group planning to stay at the hotel.
Cash voucher - A voucher used to support a cash payment at the front desk.
Central reservation system - A network for communicating reservations in which each participating property is resented in a computer system database and is required to provide room availability data to the central reservations center on a timely basis.
City ledger - The collection of all non-guest accounts, including house accounts and unsettled departed guests accounts.
Commercial hotel - A property, usually located in a downtown or business district, that caters primarily to business clients.Also called a transient hotel.
Confirmation letter - A letter sent to the guest to verify that the reservation has been made and that it's specifications are accurate.
Control folio - An accounting document used internally by a front office computer to support all account postings by department during a system update routine.
Direct billing - A credit arrangement, normally established through correspondence between a guest or a company and the hotel, in which the hotel agrees to bill the guest or the company for charges incurred.
Electronic locking system - A locking system that replaces traditional mechanical locks with sophisticated computer based guestroom access devices.
Emergency key - A key that opens all guestroom doors, even when they are double locked.
End of day - An arbitrary stopping point for business day, eststablished so that the audit can be considered complete through that time.
European plan - A billing arrangement under which meals are paid separately from rooms.
Forecasting - The process of predicting future events and trends in business. Typical forecast developed for the rooms division include room availability and occupancy forecast.
Front office accounting formula - Previous balance + debits - credits = net outstanding balance.
Guaranteed reservation - A reservation that assures the guest that a room will be held until check-out time of the day following the day of arrival.The guest guarantees payment of the room, even if the room is not used, unless the reservation is canceled properly.
Housekeeping status report - A report prepared by housekeeping department that indicates the current housekeeping status of each room, based on a physical check.
Key rack - An array of numbered compartments used to store guestroom keys.
Night audit - A daily comparison of guest accounts with revenue center transaction information.
Pre-registration - A process by which sections of a registration card or it's equivalent are completed for guests arriving with reservations.
T-account - A two column account-recording format in which debits are posted to the left side and credits to the right side.
Traveler's check - A prepaid check sold by banks and other financial institutions which is considered equivalent to cash.
Upselling - A sales technique whereby a guest is offered a more expensive room then what he or she reserved, and then persuaded to rent the room based on the room's features, benefits, and his or her needs.