Front Office Operations Management in Accommodation Organizations

This report evaluates the function of front office operation in different accommodation organizations, the ways front office operations use technology to enhance the guest experience, and the importance of interdepartmental communication. It also covers the reservation process, forecasting room availability and revenue.

FRONT OFFICE
OPERATION
MANAGEMENT

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
LO 1.................................................................................................................................................3
Function of front office operation in different organization.......................................................3
The ways front office operations use technology to enhance the guest experience within a
range of different accommodation organizations........................................................................4
The importance of interdepartmental communication between the front office and the various
departments within specific accommodation organizations.......................................................5
LO 2.................................................................................................................................................6
The reservation process for a range of different accommodation organizations........................6
Importance of forecasting room availability and room revenue.................................................7
Revenue management techniques...............................................................................................8
Front office operations at each stage.........................................................................................10
Benefits of digital technology...................................................................................................11
Enhancement of front office operations....................................................................................11
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................11
References......................................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Front office is represented as a consumer facing segment of the organization. Front office
operation management in the hospitality industry involve the task of reserving accommodation,
register guest, maintain their arrival and departure account, night auditing and also coordinating
with other various other department in order to provide the best. This report is based on the case
study of ibis Styles Landon Walthamstow. It provides the best possible deal to their consumer by
connecting over 100000 approx. hotels across the globe. Moreover, ibis Styles Landon
Walthamstow has their own independent travel networks which will help the customer to get the
same deal that can be provided by the travelling agency (Yoon and et.al., 2021). This report will
cover the evaluation of front office within the various accommodation organization. Moreover,
this report will also evaluate importance of managing reservation process in order to maximize
profit. Guest experience journey within the front office operation will be analysed. In addition to
this, how front office operation maintain the quality-of-service delivery will be evaluated.
MAIN BODY
LO 1
Function of front office operation in different organization
Front office department of the company manage the transaction between the guest and
hotels. Front office staff perform their task by receiving guests, managing their request, create
the first impression about the hotel in the mind of consumers. It is represented as the first and the
last face of hotel.
Guest registration: all the activities which are related to check-in, welcoming, allotting rooms,
discusses related to the prices etc. is to be done within the front office (Girsang And et.al., 2017).
This is a primary process where registration is completed in order to delegate the services further
to the customers. Many times even if the customer is communicating to collect relevant and
necessary information still the hotel management register such customer. This will further
involve constantly coordinating with the customer. Many times this result into unusual
intervention in the daily routine of the consumer. For example: ibis Styles Landon Walthamstow
has a front office where staff perform their task like checking of online booking, creating front
impression, register guest detail etc. in efficient manner.
Guest reservation:

All the services which are related to the room reservation from the various sources, their
recordings, updating data base to make sure that consumer easily get rooms without any delay
(Ko, 2018.). For example: Heaven holiday provides online booking facility for the guest who
want to book their rooms in advance.
Cash and bills: Under the cash and bill section, front staff record all the monetary transaction of
consumer. As it maintains the guest account and prepare the bills etc. Recently hospitality sector
has transformed and switched towards digital payment system. This allow the customer to make
digital payments. Many times the online fraud also take place. Hotels are not being able to
allocate a safe and secure online payment mode to its customers. For example: Ritz Landon keep
their front office staff for maintaining the cash and bill of the guest at the time of departure.
Travel desk: It also performs the function of travel arrangement for guest such as air ticket, train
reservation, station pick up and drop etc. Moreover, it may perform the function of outsource the
travel agency.
Communication section: In the communication section the front office staff answer the
incoming calls, directing call to the guest room, providing information and protecting guest
privacy etc.
Moreover, company can improve the front office operation through digital mode where
all the transactions are to be recorded at online data base (Brunato and Battiti, 2020). This will
increase the efficiency and accuracy of performing the task. In addition to this, all the activity of
front office are maintained by prioritizing the task on the basis of preferences.
The ways front office operations use technology to enhance the guest experience within a range
of different accommodation organizations
Mobile check-in: Some time consumer wants to go straight to the room without wasting time in
check-in process. Ibis Styles Landon Walthamstow increases their recognizing by using the
mobile tech services for the making their guest comfortable. Sometimes due to technical glitch or
issue this entire process consume extra time to complete the action.
Better WI-FI: better Wi-Fi facility helps to enhance the guest experience. It is because free Wi-
Fi with high speed is an important factor for the personal and business travellers for selecting
most appropriate hotel (Napierała, 2017). This Ritz Landon, provide the free Wi-Fi facility to
their customer for making unique and memorable experience.

Cybersecurity: Proper cyber security helps the customer to make sure that their data is safe and
secured. Moreover, a secured IT infrastructure build the loyal customer base for the long term
growth of the company. For example: Heaven holiday has invested in the tech infrastructure
which can protect the data of their guest. So that customer can feel protected and safe while
filling or researching any data. There is not any effective system that can provide the complete
privilege of cyber security to the customers.
Personalized guest experience: This is the best opportunity for the ibis Styles Landon
Walthamstow to create a unique and memorable experience. It can be done through hotel
management software which allow to tract all the information which are related to the guest taste
and preferences, market trend etc. So that company produce the same product as their customer
want (Marzullo Oliveira and Renzi, 2017). This entire practice need to be addressed with the
proper technical system and structure. This entire system require the high technology and
equipments that can look after to the entire matter. This entire system is very costly and create an
extra burden over the organisation. For example: Hotel 41 provide services through their
personal software which will helps to remind the taste and preference of the customer.
The importance of interdepartmental communication between the front office and the various
departments within specific accommodation organizations
The front office plays important role in delivering information to the customer with the help of
other department in ibis Styles Landon Walthamstow (Datu And et.al., 2019). The relationships
of the front office manager develops with other department which include manager and other
employees in order to gather more and more information for satisfying consumer needs.
Moreover, developing a positive relationship with the other department is the part of
communication process.

Front office and housekeeping communicate with each other about the housekeeping room
status and the report on the availability of room for the immediate customer occupancy.
Moreover, front office and housekeeping communicate on the detail of number of customers
registered, security concern, for maintaining the personal room toiletry items such as shampoo,
mouthwash, electronic equipment (Sann and Lai, 2020). Moreover, at the end of the day, the
official report of all rooms status which include vacant, out of order and occupied are to be
accomplished with the house keeping room. In addition to this, front office staff also maintain
the relationship with other department such as food and beverage, banquet, engineering and
maintenance, security, human resources management department etc. This entire system require
proper system and resources to maintain the whole structure. If the proper maintenance is not
conducted than the whole system do not work properly. Technical issues further damage the
whole system. IT team and professionals need to work day and night for maintaining the whole
system. Further, organisation also require taking regular backup of all the data and information.
In the absence of backup if any technical glitch occur this will harm and damage all the
information and data collected so far.
Communication activity includes estimated number of guest previous occupancy, process
the request of payment, prepare house count report to schedule the staff and forecast sales. By
communicating with the banquet department, front operation staff provide the worker to prepare
daily accoutrement board along with the daily inside listing of daily activity in the company.

This will help in gathering useful information for the guest to make their experience unique
(Bardi, 2021). Moreover, front office staff of the ibis Styles Landon Walthamstow also
communicate with their engineering department for checking the room status about plumbing,
air-conditioner, plumbing etc. In addition to this, it is also important to communicate with the
security department for maintaining the guest security, fire safety, emergency situation in order
to provide safety.
LO 2
The reservation process for a range of different accommodation organizations
The word reservation is to be defined as blocking or reserving any room for the guest for
the certain duration which is done as per the pre request of the consumer while booking.
Different organization follow various method of reserving or booking which include online
method, on the sport booking etc. If customer book their rooms in advance than this will increase
the change of grabbing the great deal.
Reservation inquiry: Reservation process started with inquiry where consumer who are
planning to explore the reservation facility start their inquiry in the hotel (Brunato and Battiti,
2020). This inquiry includes date of arrival, date of departure, number of room and guest, room
plan, contact number, address, mode of payment etc. This will help to check the room
availability in the organization. Hotel management need to ensure that if thee customer is not
preferring to provide any information than the management must not force such a customer just
to collect one particular information. This will further be result into the fact that the organisation
will end up losing the customer.
Reservation source: There are different methods through which customer can book their rooms.
The room booking sources are direct contact to hotel, by contacting to the travel agent, corporate
reservation (where room is to be booked by company for their employees), air lines etc. These
sources are also used by airline to reserve the room in the hotel. Apart from the modern practices
many traditional techniques are still in function. This involves completing registration over
phone calls. Many times as the company utilize both thee methods this misleads the management
in case of not recording the information properly. Management need to hold a proper
communication system to overcome the one particular issue.

Accepting or denying the reservation: Room booking staff will be at the position to deny or
accept the reservation made by the consumer. If the specific room (which customer wants) is
available for a date as customer has requested than the booking will be accepted otherwise staff
will suggest any other date or reject the request.
Registering reservation detail: Reservation denied and acceptability is totally depended on the
room availability on the specific date (Sann and Lai, 2020). If customer request is accepted than
the all the information is to be registered. This is a primary information asked from the customer
at the time of registration is done. The all necessary information related to personal detail of
customer are asked at this stage.
Reservation conformation: After recording all the information, the next step is to conform the
reservation and collect the card details if advance needed (based on the guest history).
For example: Ritz Landon provide online and offline booking with the help of different sources.
Moreover, guest can adopt any mode whichever is suitable. Further, guest call to the company
for the checking the availability of room. In addition to this, front office staff ask some questions
such as date of arrival, numbers of members etc. and then conform the booking as per the room
availability.
Ibis Styles Landon Walthamstow has a quick and easily reservation process where customer can
check availability of room own their own with the help of mobile app, website updation. Further,
make a payment through online mode and conform their booking.
Importance of forecasting room availability and room revenue
Forecasting the room availability is done for the purpose of managing the reservations
and having consultancy entrance for the administrations. The front office is supervised to
schedule the essential quantity for the expected volume of business. These techniques are useful
in other lodge department managers as well. Some of the benefits of forecasting room
availability includes having a radical advantage of the hotel as well as its surroundings. The aim
of this approach is to forecast the number of rooms that are available for sale for the upcoming
dates. It helps in managing the reservation process within the hotel organisation such as Ibis
styles Walthamstow while making the front office effective and scheduling necessary number of
employees regarding the business (Sayin, and Karaman, 2019). The benefits of hotel room
forecasting includes:

Marketing strategy: It acts as effective execution process as a marketing strategy. This plans
the promotions and offers offered to the customers. It triggers the sales and marketing
department of the company to activate the sales and related initiatives based on the customer
demands. Management can focus over using digital marketing, social media marketing, search
engine, traditional methods and such like of strategies to promote the services of hotel. This will
allow the management to further attract new customers along with sustaining the existing one.
Purchase decisions: It can be improved with the help of good fore casting such as during the
low occupancy time the management of the hotel can decide to cut the budget in coffee shops
and purchase perishable food products.
Expansion plan: Forecasting helps in understand the state of hotel with regard to the current
demands present in the market. Unconstrained demand can be referred to the management of
hotel while planning for its expansions. The hotel also require focusing over providing and
implementing both structural changes and technology related expansions. Infrastructural
expansion would target to open new hotels and such changes. On the other side technology
related expansion will consider installing new and modified equipments to improve the customer
support.
Decision regarding the staff and maintenance: Forecast will be done on the basis of all the
department and their staffing purpose. It tells about the need to hire more staff for the hotel
during peak times. Moreover, hotels tend to utilise the time when there is low occupancy to have
the periodic maintenance of its services.
Having a revenue management system helps in building strategy that determines the best
rate for which the rooms of the hotel can be sold (Lee, and et.al., 2019). It enables making a plan
on prior basis that will help in optimising the manpower according to the higher demands and
avoiding any case of over- staffing when the demands of lower. The accurate forecast of the
room revenue based on its occupancy empowers the manager to yield across different channels.
Having revenue management strategy helps in determining the best rate of the rooms with the
better management of the resources depending on their needs. It helps in making the most out of
the resources and lowering its cost that will help in avoiding extra cost.
Revenue management techniques
Revenue management is the application of all the analytics that assist in predicting the
behaviour of the customers at market level. This helps in optimising the product availability and

price the hotels for having maximum growth revenue. The main focus behind the revenue
managements techniques is to sell the right product to right customers at very suitable price
range. Revenue management in hotels consists of all the past bookings along with the current
bookings and other industry based data. Revenue management techniques based on various
scenarios within the hotel context includes:
Understanding the market: It includes implementing a successful revenue management
strategy by having clear understanding regarding the market. This helps in understanding the
demands that is derived from various factors on local level that will affect the seasonal demands.
It makes the organisation be aware of the audience and their needs and requirements (Melián-
González, and Bulchand-Gidumal, 2017). In addition to this, understanding the market assists in
gaining full knowledge of the competition that run within the market while making the strategic
decisions accordingly.
Pricing strategy: Within this approach, pricing strategy is implemented to anticipate the
value that is developed for the customers related with the specific prices that contains this value.
Company will decide the price against their services in accordance with the competitor prices
and get the most value by following the market conditions and demands present at the segmented
level. This dictates the pricing tactics that will capture the value.
Forecasting strategy: It allows the organisation to anticipate future needs and
requirements while enabling the necessary adjustments done. In the case of hospitality industry,
high quality forecasting is done based on the accurate data regarding the occupancy, room rates
and revenue. It includes the use of historical data that will help in spotting the trends. Moreover,
this technique requires the information about the bookings, performance of competitor
companies, trends within the industry and even the local events.
Promotions: this technique allows the organisation to sell their services based on the
temporary discounts on its price. It helps in measuring customer responsiveness with the help of
promotions to maintain the balance between volume growth and profitability. Effective
promotions helps in increasing the revenue based on the uncertainty and willingness of the
customers to pay. Promotions work by attracting customers by committing to them over long
term.

Front office operations at each stage
Guest experience journey is the collection of various touch- points that forms an
interaction between the guest of the hotel with its management. Every guest of the hotel will
have a different experience for when compared to other guest. Therefore, it must be different and
must be an individually catered experience.
Pre- arrival: During this stage, the guest will select the hotel and is affected by their
previous experiences, promotions, referrals from friends, location and many more. The role of
front office here is to make the reservation process ease for the customers along with the way the
front staff interacts with them. This interaction must include the information regarding the
facilities provided by the hotel and other recreational facilities that will attract them. It is
important that the staff must be sales oriented and present a happy and positive strong image
regarding the hotel. The front staff makes the reservation according to the guest demands and
will help the hotel in providing the guest with much more personalised approach during their
stay.
Arrival: The arrival of the guest includes registration process. Here, the front office is supposed
to build a business relationship while having the responsibility of clarifying the doubts and
queries of the guests. It includes the details of the room, rate of packages and so on. Staff must
determine the reservation status before the check- in process and gain the opportunity of business
from the guest coming without reservation. The process of registration is completed with the
payment method and confirming the departure date of the guest as well as signed by them.
Occupancy: Front office is trained to coordinate with the requests raised by the guests and
providing them with information along with the necessary supplies. They are supposed to take
extra care while responding to the guests in timely manner. This will encourage the guest to stay
more. In addition to this, the front office task is to handle the financial activities by verifying the
charges and checking the accounts of the guest list.
Departure: This is the final stage where the guest vacates the room and front office will provide
with the accurate statements stating the settles accounts, returning the keys and leaving the hotel.
When the guest is checked out, front office will update the availability of the rooms and other
related status while notifying the housekeeping department. This stage also includes collecting
feedback from the guests.

Benefits of digital technology
Efficient online bookings: With the help of technology, company can be successful by
delivering the right information to the potential guests. The website of the company is the first
point of contact that plays an important part in supplying most important information to the
customers. Powerful technology will help in building a consumer friendly layout.
Well organised staff: With the right set of technology tools, it is easy to keep record of the rates,
availability and other function in check. Digital technology helps in finding the reservations
easily during the check- in process of the guests. The staff can elevate the guest experience by
assigning rooms with the help of technology.
Enhancement of front office operations
There are many ways by which the management and the front office staff to improve
their customer service and provide them with quality experience. It is important for the hotel to
treat every guest as a VIP guest. This will guarantee a memorable experience that they will
prefer to repeat. Front staff must be responsive and sense the urgency for everyone. Organisation
must make training session as an important priority list rather than doing it just one time. New
technologies will allow quality training eliminating the need for lengthy time commitment (Shin,
Perdue,. and Kang, 2019). In addition to this, staff can provide personalised approach within the
services provided to its guests to make them feel they are being value and important for the
company. Service quality model helps in attaining the desired qualities within the services
offered. It is useful in solving the problems faced regarding quality. This model can be used on
regular basis in tracking the perceptions of the potential guests of company and can be analysed
by identifying their strengths and weakness when compared to the competitors. It also allows to
have different segments based on individual scores.
Conclusion
Front office operation plays crucial role in the success of an organization. Moreover,
front office staff maintain their relationship with other department to gather the information
which is required for providing unique experience to the customer. Moreover, quick and easily
reservation process helps to build large customer base. Moreover, it required to analyse the room
availability and revenue forecasting in order to make purchase decision, marketing strategies etc.
Further, company also adopt some revenue management techniques by understanding the market

and making competitive price strategies etc. Digital technology also play important role in
enhancing customer experience.

References
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