1.

Describe the basic organizational structure of a hotel including the types of positions
available and the responsibility of each.

2. Describe ways the hotel industry can reduce its turnover rate

3. Identify the major pieces of equal opportunity legislation and analyze their effect on
hotel management and employees.

4. Analyze strategies for determining break-even points and room rates.

•Hotels and motels, regardless of size, are organized to provide lodging and related to
guests.

•All share some organizational similarities as they strive to fulfill this mission.

•The front of the house staff refers to those individuals or department who have direct
contact with the guests.

•The back of the house staff are those individuals who operate behind the scenes to
make a guest’s stay pleasant and safe.
•The general manager is the chief of operating officer of the hotel, with responsibilities in 3
main areas:
•Relating to guests and employees
•Overseeing operations
•Increasing profitability

•Supervises and organizes all other departments within the hotel and, therefore, must
be familiar with the operations of each area.
•Armed with a thorough knowledge of management principles, they delegate authority
effectively and emphasize a team approach to problem-solving and service

•Numerous managerial duties are carried out by department heads and other managers
who report directly to the general managers.

•The resident manager commonly supervises front office operations and reservations as
well as housekeeping.
•Hotel accounting functions come under the supervision of the controller or head
accountant who has the significant prior experience in both accounting and the hotel
industry.

•The controller manages the accounting department and all the financial dealings of the
hotel and participates in long-term financial planning and projections.

•The accounts payable department is responsible for verifying and paying bills incurred
for the purchase of materials and services.

•The accounts receivable department records all money received by the hotel and may
oversee credit, billing and cashiering functions.

•Large hotels may also employ a credit manager, whose responsibilities include
validating and authorizing guest credits and collecting overdue accounts.

•A paymaster may head a large payroll division within a hotel.

•Interviews, hire and train the hotel’s workforce and manages the hotel’s employee benefits
program and monitors with laws in hiring and promotion.

•A large marketing departments may coordinate the efforts of various professionals including
those of director of advertising, director of public relations, director of sales and various sales
representatives

•Specific responsibilities of the marketing department within any hotel may include:
•Sales of hotel rooms and facilities to individuals and groups.
•Advertising in print and media sources
•Managing public relations to maximize the image of the hotel
•Establishing contacts with travel agents and tour guides.
To provide lodging to guests, all hotels are organized around four basic functions:
1. Front desk operation
2. Housekeeping
3. Food & beverage
4. Building maintenance/engineering
5. Security.

Front Desk Operations

•The front office oversees room availability, registers guests, processes reservations,
supervises check-out and assigns rooms and keys.

•The front office answers guest questions about hotel activities and resources and provides
information about nearby restaurants and attractions.
Reservation

•Reservations can be booked in a number of different ways, including through a local

reservation clerk, sales or marketing department and hotels’ centralized reservation system.

•Overbooking is where hotels book 10 to 15 percent more reservation than they have
available.

Check-in

•The room clerk is the individual at the front desk who greets and registers hotel guests.

•Most hotels use a computerized property management system to store information about
reservations, room availability and room rate.

•Smaller establishment may maintain this information on a room rack which posts cards
showing the status of all guest rooms.

•After registration, the room clerk makes a room assignment and provides a key or key card to
the guests.
Check-out
•The check-out procedure is managed by the front office staff, and often is the duty of the
same people who handle registration.
•Check out is usually a simple process as most hotels require advance payment for rooms or at
least advance credit card verification.

Greeting
•The bell captain or his staffs is often the first individual a guest meets upon arrival. He trains
and supervises all bellhops, those who usher arriving guests to their rooms and carry their
luggage.
•The bell captains supervise the hotel’s door attendants and valet parking crew.

Communication
•Electronic voice-mail systems
•Wake up call

Information Services
•Most large hotels provide a concierge who answers questions, solve problems, and performs
the services of a private secretary for the hotel’s guests.
Housekeeping
•The housekeeping department is headed by the executive housekeeper who handles hiring,
training, supervising of staff and purchasing of cleaning supplies & equipment.

•The responsibility of the housekeeping department is to keep guest rooms and other lodging
facilities clean, well stocked and in good repair.

Room preparation
•Cleaning guest room involves changing bed and bath linens making beds, dusting vacuuming,
and scrubbing bathrooms.

•In addition, trash can are emptied, supplies of toilet paper, soap, shampoo, and tissue are
replenished; and lights, television, radios are checked to be sure they are working. In-rooms
bars and refrigerators are restocked as well.

•Individuals who perform the daily room cleaning are called room attendants.

•Floor supervisors and assistant housekeeper who supervise the day-to-day work of room
attendants.
Hotel laundry
•Providing clean linens for both guest room and bath is a major part of the housekeeping
function.

•The laundry manager supervises laundry room attendants who wash dry, iron and fold the
laundry.

Laundry and dry cleaning for guests

•Hotels have been expected to offer laundry and dry cleaning service for their guests.

•Many hotels contract with commercial laundries and dry cleaners outside the premises to
clean and press guest clothes.

•Larger hotels may operate these services in-house.

Food & Beverage Operations.
•The primary components of the food service operation in a large property includes banquets,
catering, restaurants and room service.
Room service
•Room service is a highly desired service, but rarely adds to the profitability of the hotel. Room
service operation often run at a loss.
•Staffs needs are greeter in room service than in restaurant dining rooms, since it takes longer
to transport a meal from a hotel kitchen to a guest room several floors above.
•Volume of room service sales is typically lower and the hours of service are often extended
beyond those of the hotel dining room.
•Even though room service itself may lose money, it is offered because hotel guests such as
business travelers, tired hotel guests and unaccompanied travelers have a high demand for
such service.
•The room service department is headed by a room service manager. Room service operators
take orders over the telephone. Servers transport the food from the kitchen to guest rooms.

Vending machines
•The vending machine has always offered an alternative to both restaurant and room service.
Building Maintenance / Engineering
•Large hotels may have their own staff of painters, plumbers, electricians and carpenters,
working on both repairs and preventative maintenance tasks.
•Often housekeeping and engineering work together to plan and implement the long term
upkeep of guest rooms.
•The engineering department is supervised by a chief engineer, sometimes called the plant
manager. An important function of the chief engineer of a large property is to implement and
maintain water and energy conservation measures for the hotel.

Security
•Today, most hotels have at least one professionally trained security officer, and larger hotels
have a security department headed by a chief of security.
•The chief of security has extensive training in law enforcement, as well as civil and criminal
law.
•Security staff develop catastrophe plans to ensure staff and guest safety and to minimize
direct and indirect costs from disaster.
•Possible disaster scenarios might include fire, bomb threat, earthquake, flood hurricane or
blizzard.
•There is tremendous competition among service industries to attract and retain good
employees.

Turnover Rate

•A turnover rate is calculated by dividing the number of workers replaced in a given time
period by the average number of employees needed to run the business.

•Turnover may be especially high in this industry because of inadequate methods of

recruiting, screening, and hiring new employees; inadequate training and supervision of
employees; the high numbers of jobs requiring relatively low levels of skill; poor wages and
benefits; and the perception that there are few opportunities for advancement.
Addressing the turnover issue

•Hotels have begun implementing programs that reduce employee turnover.

•Many helpful methods for reducing turnover exist such as accurate job description which
help set clear performance standard. and empowering employees to make routine decision

•Establishing incentive programs will increase employee satisfaction. Many hospitality

companies offer bonuses, guaranteed raises, and paid vacation to employees who remain on
the job for pre-established period of time. Hotels also operate incentive programs to reward
desired behavior.

•Perhaps the most important method is simply knowing employees needs.

•Benefit packages
•Medical and life insurance
•Social security pension program
•Child or elder care
•Employee assistance programs
•Family And Medical Leave Act Of 1993

•Equal Pay Act Of 1963

•Title Vii Of The Civil Right Act Of 1964

•Protection From Sexual Harassment

•The Edge Discrimination In Employment Act (Adea) Of 1967

•Title 1 Of The Americans With Disabilities Act (Ada)

•Immigration Issues

•Union
•A facility's’ income must be sufficient to cover operating expenses, such as
utility bills and employee salaries, in order to remain open. However the hotelier
hopes that income will exceed expenses, and thereby generate profit.

•As the lodging industry grew and developed it became necessary for industry
members to compare and contrast financial data. To do so, they needed to
establish a financial language or system of account in which to communicate
figures and statistics.
•Its development was a major significance to the industry, both for creating a
common financial language among hoteliers and for creating a formal
organizational structure.

•The uniform system divides hotel operations into structural categories and
departments.

•Thus, employees and expenses can be grouped in ways to determine the exact
costs of each part of the hotel’s operation.

•The uniform system also establishes the basis for job classifications, allowing for
continuity when employees move from one position to another.
•Hotels and motels perform a break-even analysis to determine the business’s
break even point; it is the point at which costs equal to revenue.

•Before determining the break-even point, a hotel must first calculated total
yearly expenses. All costs for the year are recorded.

•A general rule of thumb for calculating the break-even point is to determine

total daily expenses divided by the average room rate. This is merely an estimate
of the number of rooms which must be rented in order to cover costs.

•Anything in excess of the break-even occupancy contributes to the hotel’s profit.

•The room rate should be high enough to generate a healthy profit for the
company, but not so high as to discourage guests from staying at or returning to
the hotel.
•Most hotels charge different rates for the same room, depend on specific
conditions
•Rates vary by the season in areas where recreational travel is weather
dependent length of stay and prepayment options may also influence room.
•The practice of varying the room rate as the occupancy varies is called yield
management.
•It involves analyzing past reservation patterns, room rates, cancellations, and no
shows in an attempt to maximize profits and occupancy rates and to set the most
competitive room rates.

•Hotels set rates on a day to day basis to yield maximum profits.

In their effort to improve overall occupancy rates, hotels and motels are always
interested on boosting advance room reservations. Ways to accommodate this
include:

•A referral association may provide the independent hotel with increased

visibility, marketing and buying power, without the necessity of giving up control
or ownership

•Hotels and motels within a referral association share a centralized reservation

system and a common image, logo, or advertising slogan.

•Hotels and motels pay an initial fee to join the referral association and an annual
membership fee.

•The largest referral association is Best Western, with more than 3800 hotels in
75 countries.
•Since the 1980s, the computerized reservation system (CRS) has gained
importance in the travel industry.

•Interested participants purchase access to CRS program, which allows the agent
or clerk to receive information directly over the computer without talking to a
telephone reservationists.

•The CRS is an interactive system that allows the agent to obtain up to the
minute hotel availability and rate information. Before booking the reservation
electronically.

•CRS bookings save money and time since telephone calls to reservation are not
necessary.
•In the years before the growth of franchises and referral chains, travelers
depended on rating guides to direct them to hotels or motels

•Hotel ratings are still important, and the American Automobile Association
(AAA) are among the most influential. In international travel, hotel guides and
ratings remain very important.