Hotel Management: Front Office Processes PDF

GROUP 1 Mayol Monton Natura Dionela Carbonell Sagun RESERVATION FUNCTION FRONT OFFICE RESERVATION AND ITS IMPORTANCE When you plan to travel by train and decide your date of travel in advance, you make an advance reservation with the railway booking office perhaps, a week or a months, prior to the date of travel. The actual date of travel you ﬁnd that your name appears in a list that is displayed at the railway station and a copy of the same list that is displayed on the trains compartment in which a seat or berth has been allotted to you. How has your name appeared on this list and what happens if you do not ﬁnd your name on the list? The answer lies in the word “processing”. The reservation made by you has been processed and the ﬁnal outcome of the processing is that your name appears on the passengers list. In case the processing had not been done correctly, your name may not have appeared on the list. As you intend to travel , you also intend to stay on the hotel because of various reasons , when you decide in advance you make advance reservation for rooms. Just in the railways, the reservation request are processed in the same manner inthe hotels and the names of the expected arrivals appear on a list called “Expected Arrival List or Movement List”. Making advance reservation for rooms in a hotel is, however a little different from making railways bookings. An advance reservation request in the hotel can be made by choosing any different modes of communication. Telephone In Person Letters Fax Internet (Email) Social Media Website Mobile apps The term “reservation”means booking of room at least 24 hours in advance. Once the reservation request is received by the hotel, it is the processed. The IPO model is an analysis of performance and processing system that assumes raw materials(inputs) are transformed by internal system process to generate result(outputs) example: The front office recieves a call from a guest who wants to book a reservation in advance. The front office encoded the details of the guest and it's date of arrival. The list of guest list or movement list has been ﬁnalized and disseminated to other department to get ready for welcoming the guest. SOME IMPORTANT TERMS NO SHOW The term “no show”refers to those guest who, due to some reason , fail to arrive on the day of arrival in spite of having conﬁrmed the booking and also do not cancel their bookings in time. This situation increases the availability of the rooms for sale and may cause loss of potential revenue for the hotel. It is preferable to keep a record of no show in a hotel for each day. This record is maintained in the no show register. This record is available to guide the reservation manager to: Rise Retention Bill Revise policy for the travel agent whose no-show is higher calculate no-show factors that are used to determine future room availability Decide over booking percentage for future Time Limit Time limit means specifying in a particular time by which prospective guest with reservation must check in at the hotel failing which the room may be allowed to chance or walked- in guest. Generally the time limit is ﬁxed for guest who does not pay any advance, and the same time he/she does not provide any guarantee in terms of travel agent booking. Normally a time period of six hours is set by a hotels as the time limit. This is done to avoid total loss of revenue , in case the guest does not arrive and become and become in-show. Guaranteed Reservation It means that even in the event of no-show of a guest, the hotel does not lose any revenue, as the payment has been guaranteed and the hotel well get its retention amount. chance or walked- in guest. Overbooking Is a process of accepting more booking than the number of rooms available in the hotel. All the prospective guest are sent conﬁrmation letter. This one of the most trickiest situation and involves a lot of legal and moral responsibilities on the part of management The objective of overbooking is to achieve 100 percent occupancy or at least the maximum possible occupancy and hence it is not situation that arises due to any error on part of the reservation assistants, but the deliberate action of the reservationassistant to help the hotel attain the desire occupancy revenue, knowing that there would always be a certain number of no-show cancellation and under -stay. The front office should make the record regarding no show and early departures available for a speciﬁc period of time in the past. This period can be same month of the last year or the same week of the last mont. The source of reservation and its past history should be made available for calculating the forecasted overbooking ﬁgure. The front office manager must keep good relation with other similar standard hotel of the town. At times, the hotel front office manager may ﬁnd himself/herself in great difficulty when there are complete arrivals and/or when there number of overstays on particular day. In such cases, the manager is left with only one choice - of sending some guest to some other hotel of similar standard in town. This is known as "walking guest" THE FOLLOWING FACTORS ARE TO BE CONSIDERED WHILE DECIDING THE OVERBOOKING PERCENTAGE: Past statistic of no-show Time gap between date of booking and date of arrival Season of the year Profession of the guest Source of bookings Segment (type of clientele) Purpose of visit Situation Of business(leans/shoulder) Experience of front office manager WALK-IN GUEST/CHANCE GUEST This is a very common term that refers to those guest who arrive without prior booking in the hotel. These guests, who are not able to plan their holiday or programmed in advance, arrive at the last minute hoping that there will be some room available for them. TURN AWAY Turn away guests are those guest who come to hotel without a prior reservation hoping that there may be a room available, but the hotel is unable to provide them with accommodation for various reasons. Some of the reasons for turn away are: Unavailability of rooms Blacklisted guests Guest not in a state to accommodate SCANTY BAGGAGE A guest with light or no baggage is called scanty baggage guest. As a precaution, a substantial amount is taken as advance, because such guest may turn out to be a skipper or walkout (a guest who leaves the hotel without settling the bills. STAY OVER This term refers to the total number of guests who stay in the hotel on a particular night and further continue staying in the hotel for at least the next night. In other words, stay overs are those guests who have been registered in the hotel and are not leaving the next morning at the check-out time, but instead continue to stay for another or many more nights. OVER STAY Overstay refers to overstaying of the guests in the hotel. This refers to those guests who are scheduled to leave or check out of the hotel on a particular day as speciﬁed by them at a time of arrival or booking, but due to some reason do not leave the hotel and continue staying further, may be for one or more nights UNDERSTAY/EARLY DEPARTURE Early departures or understays are those guests who due to some reason may not want to continue staying further. The problem that is caused in such a situation is that it creates more rooms available for sale. Hotels are able to sell such rooms at the last minute to walk-ins. EARLY ARRIVAL Early arrival refers to those who check in at the hotel before their schedule date and or time of arrival as speciﬁed by them. Although an early arrival guests cannot claim a room before the check-out time yet every effect must be made to accommodate such guest as soon as possible. BASIC TOOLS OF RESERVATION In order to smoothen the reservation procedure, certain tools are put to use. These include: Room Status Board (RSB) Advance Letting Chart (ALC) Density Control Chart (DCC) Room Reservation Form ( RR Form) ROOM STATUS BOARD (RSB) It is a tool by which you can check the room availability position against the requested month. The RSB is a whiteboard or a chalkboard that is hung in the reservation section in front of the reservation assistant. The following are the terms used to update the room status board: A. Free sell (FS) or open (OP) It means that rooms are freely available for selling and the reservation request can be accepted. B. On Request (OR) It means that rooms are not available for selling, but the reservation request can be accepted onto the waiting list, hoping some cancellation in the future. At the time of accepting the reservation request, the prospective guest is informed that the reservation status is tentative. In this case, reservation assistant request the guest to inquire about the conﬁrmation near the date of arrival. C. Sold Out (SO) It means that rooms are not available and requests are not accepted even onto the waiting list. Advance Letting Chart (ALC) This is also called Advance Reservation Chart (ARC). This is a tool by which the room availability position can be known against the requested period of a particular month. The reservation section maintains one ALC for each month separately. Twelve ALC for a particular year are kept in a ﬁle in serial order. The ALC is used only by small hotels because of some disadvantages. The main disadvantage being the types of rooms cannot be located easily on the chart. Rooms being allotted in advance on the ALC do not allow the management of the hotel to make any alteration in the planning. The ALC should be updated with a pencil only to maintain neatness during cancellation and amendment. Density Control Chart (DCC) The density control chart is also called the density chart. It is a tool by which the room availability position can be known against the requested period of a particular month. The reservation section maintains one DCC for each month separately. Twelve DCCs for particular year are kept in a ﬁle in the serial order. The DCC has many advantages in respect to ALC and can be used by hotels of any size. The DCC should be updated with a pencil for the same reason explained before. Room Reservation Form (RR Form) It is a tool that is optional in the procedure of a room reservation in some hotels and by which the reservation assistant can record all the necessary and relevant information regarding the prospective guest for the purpose of processing the reservation request, but it is recommended to use this form for better accuracy in processing. MODES OF PAYMENTS 1. Direct Payment (DP) Direct payment is made when the guest settle the bills directly by cash, credit card, demand draft, travelers cheques and so on. However, personal cheques are not accepted, expect in cases of acute emergency. 2. To Company(To Co) This is the mode of payment used when the bills are settled by the guest’s company. 3. Holding Voucher (HV) In HV mode, the guest holds an exchange voucher and the bill is settled by the concerned travel agent. Exchange voucher is also called a travel voucher or travel agent’s voucher. Through this voucher, the travel agents give written instruction to the hotel regarding the services to be rendered to the guest. Different System of Processing Reservation Different hotels adopt different system of processing reservation that suit them. The various system of reservation are: Diary System Whiteney System Computerised System Diary System of Reservation The system is known as diary system because in this system, the concept of “diary” is used. In this system the hotel maintain a diary in which the name of the guest is written on the diary page as per the date of arrival. Every page of the diary has the date as per the calendar. Thus, all the guest who have requested reservation are enlisted date-wise (according to the date of arrival ) onto the respective page of the diary. Thus checking and preparing the movement list become easier. The diary system is used only in a small hotels and cannot be used in medium or large size hotel because of some disadvantages. TOOLS USED The tools required for the operation of the diary system and their uses are discussed below: 1. Room Status Board While a reservation request is received, ﬁrst the RSB is referred, which gives an idea of the room availability position against the request month. 2. Advance Letting Chart By referring to ALC , the room status can be known against the requested period of a particular month. 3. Room Reservation Form This tool is used to record all the necessary and relevant information regarding to the perspective guest by the reservation assistance. 4. Hotel Diary or Booking Diary This is another tool used by the reservation section to record all the necessary and relevant information regarding the prospective guest for the purpose for processing. The information is recorded on a particular page of the diary according to the date of arrival. The hotel diary is bound register containing 365-366 pages arranged in a serial order as per the date of arrival. The Room Reservation (RR) forms are optional , but the hotel diary is a permanent record. To avoid untidy work on the diary, it is recommended to use the RR form. 5. Movement List or Expected Arrival List By using the movement list, the reservation section intimates the perception section and other departments about the arrivals for the next day. Reservation Procedure The reservation procedure through the diary system is carried out in the following manner: 1. As soon as the reservation request is received, the room availability position is checked by referring to the RSB and subsequently the ALC, if required. 2. If the reservation section is in a position to accept the reservation request, the ALC is updated and subsequently the RSB, if required. 3. Then, the RR form is ﬁlled up with the information, if in use. 4. An entry is made in the booking diary on the proper page according to the date of arrival of the guest. 5. Before closing the section, the movement list is prepared for the next day and distributed to the following sections/departments: Reception Housekeeping Room Service General Manager F & B Manager Executive Chef ( in case of group arrival) Security ( in case of VIP arrival) ﬁle SAMPLE OF MOVEMENT LIST DISADVANTAGE OF DAIRY SYSTEM The Diary System has the following drawbacks: 1. The reservation cannot be taken far in advance in the diary system of reservation. 2. The booking diary is bulky, so it is difficult to handle. 3. The diary cannot be maintained neatly because of continuous use. 4. The entries in the diary cannot be made in an alphabetical order. 5. Guest status is not known at a glance from the diary. 6. The diary system is not a scientiﬁc system because, if the page is lost, the the entire information on the page is lost. 7. Diary system cannot be used in large hotels because of limited availability of space on each page. 8. Cancellation and amendment becomes difficult as entries are made permanently on the diary pages. WHITNEY SYSTEM OF RESERVATION Whitney system of reservation is a well-accepted system worldwide because of its simplicity. This is a foolproof system as double checking is done. It was developed by a company called Whitney Duplicating and Check Company of New York and the system had been named after the company. This system can be used by hotels of any size. Tools Used Various tools required in this system are discussed below. 1. Room Status Board When a reservation request is received, ﬁrst the RSB is referred, which provide the room availability position against the requested month. 2. Density Control Chart By referring to DCC, the room status can be found against the requested period of a particular month. 3. Room Reservation Form This tool is used to record all the necessary and relevant information regarding the prospective guest by the reservation assistant. 4. Whitney Slip It is used to record some of the vital information that is taken from the RR form. The Whitney slip is 3" x 1 ½" in size. Name of the guest, pax, arrival date and time, departure date, room rate and plan, billing instructions, booked by and signature of the reservation assistant are the pieces of information mentioned on the Whitney Slip (see Fig. 3.10). The Whitney Slip is always prepared in duplicate and is always typed. 5. Whitney Carrier It is used to hold the Whitney slips in the Whitney rack and is made of metal ( usually made of aluminium). Reservation Procedure The reservation procedure under the Whitney system entails the following steps: 1. As soon as a reservation request is received, the room availability position is checked by referring the RSB and subsequently the DCC, if required. 2. If the reservation section is in a position to accept the reservation request, the DCC is updated and subsequently the RSB, if required. 3. Then, the RR form is ﬁlled in with information provided by the guest and is kept in the correct slot of the rotary rack according to the date/month/year of arrival, as the case may be. 4. During the day, whenever free time is available, the ﬁlled-in RR forms are taken out from the rotary rack and the Whitney slips are prepared in duplicate with the required information. 5. The original Whitney slip is placed on a Whitney carrier that is then placed on the proper Whitney rack in an alphabetical order. 6. The duplicate Whitney slip is attached to the RR form. 7. The RR form is the kept in the RR form ﬁle. The Reservation Section maintains 43 RR form ﬁles that are maintained in the same way as that of the Whitney racks. The RR form ﬁles are kept under lock and key which is under the supervision of reservation supervisor. 8. At the end of the day, before closing the reservation section, the RR forms as well as the Whitney rack for the following day are taken out. The movement list is made by referring the Whitney slips and RR forms. While disturbing the movement list, next day's Whitney rack is handed over the reception. The empty Whitney rack that was handed over to the reception on the previous day is taken back. The Whitney rack acts as guest alphabetical index rack at reception. This is how the Whitney rack moves ahead each day. 9. Every last but one day of the month, the Whitney rack of the following month is taken out and the Whitney slips are arranged in the Whitney racks that are empty, according to the date of arrival in an alphabetical order and are placed against the walk in serial order Whitney Colour Code Whitney slips of different colours are used to denote the status of the guest. This helps the reservation section to ﬁnd out various guests of any status at a glance. For example: WHITE: FIT YELLOW: GROUP BLUE: VIP PINK: CIP The colour of the Whitney slips for denoting guest status may vary from hotel to hotel. Advantages of Whitney System The Whitney system has the following advantages: 1. Reservation can be taken far in advance. 2. Reservation can be maintained in an alphabetical order. 3. Guest status can be known at a glance. 4. It is scientiﬁc, as an option for double checking is established. 5. It can be handled very easily. 6. Maintenance is very easy. 7. Cancellation and amendment is very easy. 8. The system can be used in hotels of any size. Cancellation and Amendment Cancellation is obliterating a reservation that had been done by a guest with a hotel while amendment is a change in the reservation. The change can be regarding any one or all of the following: Date of arrival Date of departure Duration of stay Type of room Number of rooms Number of person Food plan etc. For any cancellation of room reservation, a minimum of three day's notice is required for FIT guests. This is known as cut-off date or cut-out date. If this condition is not fulﬁlled, a retention charge is taken from the guest. The cut-off date for a group reservation is normally 30 days. CANCELLATION PROCEDURE The cancellation procedure is carried out in different ways in the diary and Whitney system. In the Diary System 1. As soon as a cancellation request is received, a cancellation code is developed and informed to the guest. 2. The cancellation form is then ﬁlled up, if in use, and is stapled with the RR form. 3. The cancellation code is written clearly on the cancellation form and kept in the cancellation ﬁle together with the RR form. 4. The entry in the hotel diary is cancelled by drawing a line across , and is marked as cancelled. 5. The ALC is updated and then the RSB, is required. 6. The cancellation code is noted down in the remarks column of the hotel diary along with the signature of the reservation assistant. 7. The cancellation register is then ﬁlled in. Amendment Procedure The amendment procedure in the diary and Whitney systems are discussed below. In Diary System 1.As soon as amendment request is received, the room availability position is checked by referring the RSB and subsequently the ALC. 2. If the amendment request can be accepted, then an amendment form is ﬁlled in, if in use, then kept in the RR form ﬁle after being stapled with the RR form, generated at the time of reservation. 3. The ALC is updated followed by the RSB, if required. 4. The previous entry in he diary is cancelled by drawing a line across and marked as “AMENDED”. The reservation assistant signs on it. 5. A fresh entry is made in the diary as per the date of arrival. IN WHITNEY SYSTEM 1. As soon a as the amendment request is received, the room availability position is checked by referring the RSB and subsequently the DDC 2.If the amendment request can be accepted, then an amendment form is ﬁlled in. 3. The DDC is then updated, then followed by the RSB, if required. 4. A new Whitney slip is made as per the amendment in duplicate. 5. Old original Whitney slip and the RR form are then stapled together. 6. Original Whitney slip is placed on the Whitney rack after mounting on a carrier, in an alphabetical order. 7. The duplicate Whitney slip is stapled with the amendment form and the RR form and then placed in the proper RR form ﬁle in alphabetical order. Professional Hotel Front Office Management The rules and regulations of the hotėl and at the same time is a proof of his stay in the hotel for a certain period of T ime. It also satisﬁes many other diversiﬁed purposes concerned with the following: Creating and collecting guests' personal data (a)Satisfying the guests' room and rate requirement (b)Generating a registration record.of transaction (c)Types of Registration Records Types of Registration Records Bound Book Register Normally used by smaller hotels, this register has all pages bound and can be used for a long period of time. This is also called the red book or F-form. The bound bock register has the following advantages: 1. All records are available in one book. 2. No ﬂing is required. 3. There is minimal wastage. However, the bound book register also has disadvantages such as given below: 1. Only one guest can be registered at a time. 2. It is bulky and difficult to carry. 3. It cannot be maintained neatly. 4. Privacy cannot be maintained. 5. Pre-registration cannot be done. 6 If misplaced, all records might be lost forever. Loose Leaf Register This is the same as the bound book register in its contents, only that its pages are not bound. Separate leaves are used everyday. The merits of the loose leaf register are: 1. Privacy maintained, to some extent. 2. Easier to hand over to guests, as only one page used at a time.3. If a leaf is lost, only one day's information is lost. The demerits of the loose leaf register are: 1. Leaves can be easily misplaced. 2. An incomplete leaf (less number of registration) means the whole is wasted. 3. Only one guest can be registered at a time. 4. Filing becomes an additional job. 5. Pre-registration cannot be done. Guest Registration Card (GRC) These well-designed cards are used by various hotels. A separate card is used for each registration, They may be used in duplicate or triplicate depending on the policy of the hotel. These are handed over to the guest on arrival for registration. The merits of this system are as follows: 1. Multiple guests can be registered at the same time.2. Privacy can be maintained. 3. Easy storage. 4. No wastage. 5. Guests can be pre-registered. 6. Easy to carry. Its demerits are as follows: 1. It is expensive. 2. It can be lost if not stored properly Pre-Registration Procedure Generates all necessary documents required for registration before the guests' arrival, guest regIstration card, key card, etc. This is only possible for guests who have a prior reservation. On arrival, the guest is given the registration card to check that the information is correctly recorded. If further information is required, the receptionist must complete that on behalf of the guest. The key card is also kept ﬁlled, leaving the column for the guests' signature. The key card serves as an identity card for the guest during his/her proposed stay in the hotel. The pre-registration procedure is mainly performed in the case of VIP, CIP, Groups and SPATT guests. Complementary items are placed in advance in the rooms. Keys of those rooms are kept aside. The procedure reduces registration in time on arrival and enables the guest to be registered without delay. Also rooming of guests can be done faster. Hence, the hotel can deliver better guest satisfaction. THANK YOU!

Hotel Management: Front Office Processes PDF

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