Hilton Woodland Hills Tour Paper

Reservations/Registration

Guest Services/Telecommunications

Night Audit/Checkout

Front Office Department

Typically reports to the Resident Manager or directly to the General Manager in smaller hotels.

i. Establishes efficient methods of all departments

ii. Works closely with the Sales department to aid conventions and groups

iii. Prepares reports and forecasts

iv. Develops operational procedures

v. Hiring, Firing and Training

vi. VIP’s and Special needs

 Goal is to sell every room in the hotel

 Anticipate future room availability

 Ability to handle telephone reservations

 Efficient in Reservation Processing systems

 Issuing reports to all departments

 Special Attention List, VIP’S, special needs

 Availability board this is now automated

 800 -number or at hotel property level

 Walk-ins

 Late Arrival Reservations are only guaranteed by a deposit.

 This is known as a “Guaranteed Reservation”

 This will hold the first night, if the guest does not show it is called a “No Show” and the guest is still charged for the first night stay

 If a sell out is known the FD agent registers the guest account called a guest folio

 The night auditor generates a list of no shows which goes to accounting for review and charges and marks them as “preregistered no-show”

 Registers Guest & answers all room and hotel type questions

 Issues keys

 Assists with business needs fax, messages, etc.

 Mail

 Engineering/housekeeping requests

 Valet/Cab/Bus Service

 Dining Reservations

 Cash transactions/parking

Standard formula for booking rooms =

The average numbers of no-shows, cancellations, and early departures are added up and divided by the total number of rooms reserved to give the percentage of reserved rooms

For example:

11 no-shows, 3 cancelations, and 2 early departures for 200 reservations, (11+3+2=16; 16/200=0.08X 100) Thus giving the FD 8% above their maximum number of accommodations or 216 reservations

 The FD agent must acknowledge and welcome the guest whether you have a room available for them or not

 They must call to surrounding areas for rooms available to walk the guest

 How you handle this procedure could effect future bookings

 If the guest has a reservation but you have no rooms this is called a “walk”

 The reciprocating hotel will honor the reservation, we will provide transportation

Common in larger hotels

Smaller hotels combined this service with the Front Desk

5 star hotels Concierges a must

“Go to desk”

Common in Big cities, Preferences given to Concierges

Concierge

Works in conjunction with each of these positions to the right.

Orchestrates for the guest based on their schedules/requests

Arranges points of interest, transportation to and from destination

Key in large convention groups handling/storing/delivering of luggage

Bell Captain

Valet

Doorstaff

 PBX = private branch exchange

 A revenue center but

 A dying breed with the use of cell phones

 Common in large hotels/takes pressure off of the front desk to help field requests

 New 911 law

 Works 11pm to 7:30am shift

 Audits guest accounts

 Runs end of day reports/journals for all departments

 Functions as a FD agent, security & PBX

 Preparing cash deposits

 FD agent checks out/settles guest folio charges upon check-out

 They change the room status to checked out so housekeeping will clean the room

 Any late charges are put on the guest folio credit card

 The goal is to have repeat guest

 Many guest choose express check-out