Hotel Management: Operations, Services, and Financial Control
Historical Travel
Roman Period: Travelers circulated for religious reasons, military missions, diplomatic or political purposes.
Ancient Persia: Travel in caravans where shops were more complete.
Khans: Four-wall structures that protected against natural enemies.
Taverns/Inns: Provided shelter to travelers, such as merchants, actors, and students.
Posts: Known as yams, they were worthy of a king’s apartments.
Top Historical Hotels
DeLancey: Acquired mansion converted into an inn in 1762 by Samuel Fraunces, baptized as Queen’s Head Tavern.
City Hotel: First to receive the honor of being called a hotel, opened in 1794 at Boston’s Tremont House, NY: First 1st class hotel.
Hotel Types
Basic Types
Transient: Serves people temporarily away from home.
Residential Department: Apartment house with all the amenities of a hotel, official residences of guests, your home away from home.
By Location
Small Cities: Served two purposes: staying business guests, and was a social center for residents of the city and surrounding areas.
Major Cities: Establishing hotel apartments to respond to the influx of people and demand for executive suites.
Motels: Horizontal, along the roads.
Hotel Company Types
- Owner of Several Hotels: A simple and collective structure, only requiring the constitution of a company.
- Matrix: Each subsidiary company individually owns one hotel. Provides maximum benefits regarding the protection of assets from litigation or legal action against a particular property.
- Lease Agreement: Between parent company and subsidiaries, protection against lawsuits or legal actions is protected from losses incurred by subsidiaries.
Hotel Management
Feasibility Study
Verify the feasibility of your hotel. Areas include project feasibility study, costing elements of the project, and funding sources. Establishes policy on independent hotel manager or owner. Sets policies on hotel chain (corporate).
Key Personnel
- Rooms Division Manager/Resident Manager: Person in charge of area rooms.
- Maintenance Executive: Supervises maintenance staff.
- Director of Staff: Smaller hotels, subordinate to the general manager.
- Chief Engineer: Deals with the appearance and physical condition of the building.
- Sales Department: Essential for hotels with convention and banquet facilities.
- Head of Staff: Provides human resources.
- Controller: Finance Manager of the hotel, advises the manager or owner.
- Obligations Department Staff: Recruitment, selection, verification, sending applicants, accepted applicants processes, training, and safety programs.
- Personnel Department (Human Resources): Recruitment and replacement due to normal employee rotation.
- Central Reservation Office (CRO): Heart of the reservation system, requires national publicity.
Reception
Central nervous system of the hotel. Staff welcomes guests, takes their luggage, helps with registration, turns in keys and mail. The only direct contact with guests.
Reception Functions
Reception, buttons, correspondence and information, concierge, cashiers, and night auditors.
Buttons
Carries guests’ luggage and takes them to their room. Their main function is to promote the hotel.
Concierge
The first person to welcome guests, between valet and buttons.
Other Service Employees
Elevator operators, porters, and package handling staff in the lobby.
Phone Department
Relatively minor department, deserves attention for fast, efficient, and accurate phone service. Very expensive operation, not visible to the host.
Housekeeper
Performs or supervises housekeeping work. Cleans rooms, corridors, lobby, restaurants, offices, stairs, windows, etc.
Housekeeper Functions
Cleaning and maintenance, personnel training, paperwork.
Tenant Type
Depends on the hotel’s location. Provides goods, freight, and insurance services that guests require.
Insurance
During construction, fire structure and content responsibility, against crime, general insurance. System (uniform) formalizes the entire structure and the division of the department, which is now very common in the industry.
Accounts
Banquets involve large amounts of money, requiring accounting, sales, and banquet staff.
Groups and Travel Agents
Some groups or companies pay all the accounts of their members, others are responsible only for the room and taxes, while in others, the individual is subject to all charges: room, tax, and miscellaneous.
Income Control
Ensuring the hotel receives the full amount for its goods and services.
Hotel Income
Departments arising from the operation: rooms, food and beverage, telephones, parking, pool, etc. Other income from leases.
Revenue Generating Departments
Rooms and Food & Beverage.
Night Auditors
Begin their shift recording all cash accounts, ensuring all outputs are accounted for and guests continue to be served.
Other Control Procedures
Statutes and regulations (local, state, and federal), store vouchers. Restaurant controller makes the balance sheet and the breakdown for each sale.
Food Cost Control
Based on preparation, service, and cost.
Payroll Control
Verifying employees are physically present, work a certain number of hours, and are paid the correct amount.
Staff Planning
Helping leaders with frequent department changes due to temporary staff requirements and making recommendations for permanent changes.
Tips
Prearranged for banquets, waiters, and buttons.
Credit Department Functions
- Investigate the financial status of each client to approve a credit limit.
- Collect the amount due if the customer fails to comply with established payment terms.
Franchise Services
Methods, technical assistance, and marketing. Methods are provided through operation manuals covering each phase of the operation.