Hotel and Lodging

Operations

Chapter 10

Copyright © 2010 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All Rights Reserved

LODGING OPERATIONS

• Whether 100 rooms or over 5,000 rooms, functions remain essentially the same

• Size does affect how responsibilities are separated however (and staffing)

• Hotels are generally divided into three major functional areas

HOTEL OPERATIONS

• Rooms Division– Includes Front Desk, Reservations, Uniform

Services (Security, etc.), and Housekeeping• Food and Beverage department

– Includes Restaurants, Bars, Banquets and Room Service

• Staff and support departments– Includes Accounting, Engineering, Marketing,

Human Resources, and Contracted areas

ROOMS DIVISION

• The Rooms Division is the heart of the hotel• It is the main business of the hotel and the

main source of revenue• Rooms can contribute 70 percent or more to

overall revenue and even more to profit

ROOMS DIVISION

• The center of activity in the Rooms Division is the Front Office

• It is overseen by the Resident Manager (or Assistant General Manager) and various department heads

• Responsibilities include checking guests in, checking them out, securing payment, listening to complaints, communicating with other departments, determining room availability, and selling additional rooms

RESERVATIONS DEPARTMENT

• Reservations can be made by the guest via other methods (more and more online) but many requests are still made through the hotel’s reservation department

• Reservations must maintain contact with other departments as well as other reservations channels to be able to forecast available rooms

RESERVATIONS DEPARTMENT

• The Reservations department attempts to maximize (1) room rate and (2) occupancy rate

• This is known as Yield Management – maximizing these two at any given time

• Reservations departments must consider city wide events, competition, minimum stays, etc.

HOUSEKEEPING

• The essential requirement that guests have is to be able to check into a clean room

• The Housekeeping Department 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 departments in the hotel (up to 50 % of all employees)

HOUSEKEEPING

• The Executive Housekeeper is the head of the department

• He or she must be adept at scheduling, coordinating, managing people, etc.

• Room Attendants are responsible for cleaning of individual guest rooms

• Housekeepers work from a Rooms Report, which provides them with the status of all guest rooms from which they can prioritize their work

HOUSEKEEPING

• The Housekeeping Department 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 check-outs, etc.

• Rooms can take as little as 15 minutes or as much as 1 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

UNIFORMED SERVICES

• The Uniformed Services Department is another important department 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

UNIFORMED SERVICES

• 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 includes general security, locks and lighting and security of guest belongings

SECURITY

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 AND BEVERAGE

• The Food and Beverage department can contribute 15 to 20 percent of overall revenue

• It should be a profit center but does not always make money for the hotel

• This department is headed up by a Food and Beverage Manager who oversees both front-of-the-house and back-of-the-house functions

FOOD AND BEVERAGE

• Banquets – are often profitable for hotels. Can support meetings and conferences or outside functions

• Some hotels are limiting what they offer and others are outsourcing

• Bars, room service, food production, and stewarding are other areas

STAFF AND SUPPORT DEPARTMENTS

Sales and Marketing Responsible for “creating customers” Largely revolves around selling “blocks” of rooms Can be a large department in convention hotels

specialized by market

Accounting Role is moving beyond just bookkeeping Includes overseeing the “house ledger” and the “city

ledger” Also, includes the night audit

STAFF AND SUPPORT DEPARTMENTS

Human Resources Labor intensive industry requires progressive HR Responsibilities include supporting line

departments in all HR related activities (hiring and recruiting, training, staffing, etc.)

Engineering Oversees heating, cooling, water, lighting,

telecommunications, energy management, electric, other

FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT

• Income and expenses • Revenue and profit• Changes in income and expenses over time• Outsourcing as a strategy to cut costs• Cost of maintaining a hotel

KEY OPERATING RATIOS

• Occupancy percentage = Rooms sold ÷ Total rooms available

– Example: 500 room hotel sells 300 rooms• Average rate =

Dollar sales ÷ Number of rooms sold– Example: $18,000 in sales

KEY OPERATING RATIOS

• Number of guests per occupied room = Number of guests ÷ Number of occupied rooms

• Revpar – revenue per available room = Rooms revenue ÷ Available rooms or Paid occupancy percentage * ADR (Average Daily Rate)

• Average rooms cleaned per room attendant day = Number of rooms occupied ÷ Number of eight-hour shifts

CAREER ENTRY POINTS

• Front office• Accounting• Sales and

marketing• Food and

beverage