Importance of Front Office Operations in Hotel

This report discusses the importance of front office operations in a hotel, focusing on the operational role of front office staff in a 5-star hotel. It explores how the front office department supervises various activities, handles complaints, provides porter services, manages the concierge area, arranges accommodation, and establishes relations with guests. The report uses Hilton London as a case study to illustrate these concepts.

Hospitality

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK ..............................................................................................................................................3
Importance of Front office operations in hotel...........................................................................3
Operational role of front office staff of a 5-star hotel.................................................................5
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION
Hospitality industry is developing industry which is because of change in taste and
preference of the customers for which the hotels need to provides services accordingly. In the
hotels front office department plays a crucial in providing the services to the customers. The
employees of front office department provides various services which put first and last
impression on the customers who visit to the hotel. The 5 star hotel that is taken into
consideration in the report is Hilton London which is a UK based hotel. They offers various
augmented services to the customers to satisfy them (Hilton, 2019). In this report, the importance
of front office operation is considered along with that the operational role of front office manager
and the night auditor is analysed. This helps the hotel to identify the contribution of front office
department and their people.
TASK
Importance of Front office operations in hotel
Front office department plays a vital role in the organisation as it the only department
which directly face the guest who visit to their hotel. They create first hand impression on the
guest by providing expected and augmented services along with various services. Front office
department is responsible for coordinating various activities in the hotel to ensure the efficiency
in the operations. The different department of the company along with the front office
department works towards the common goal which is to serve the customers and make them feel
delighted (Schuckert, Liu and Law, 2015). It comprises of guest services office, reception,
reservation, bell services etc. The importance of front office department in Hilton is analysed
which are given below :
 Supervision : The front office is important for Hilton as they supervise the subordinates
and for their hiring, training. Also they prepare the budget for their department which
helps them to mange their expenses and the revenue so generated for the hotel. They
supervises the bookings, assignments of the rooms to the guest and maintaining their
records which help them to manage relations with the customers and to meet with various
policies of the company (Kotler, 2017).
 Handling complaints : In Hilton, the front office is the place where the guests lodges
their complaints which are then resolves by the people in the department. The issues can

be regarding any services which has been provided to them in the hotel. The customers
report to the clerk in charge who will coordinate with the maintenance in charge to get
the issue resolved (Gibson and et. al. , 2016).
 Porter services : The another importance of front office operation is that they provides
porter to the guests which take their luggages to the room. The porter so allotted to the
guest checks that every thing in the room is perfect before the guest enters the room. This
is to ensure that they do not have face problem. In Hilton, the porter ensure the office
furniture, ventilation, lighting etc. so that they can provides efficient services to the
customers as deficiency in any aspect affects the overall imager of the company.
 Concierge area : This is the important service of the front offices department as in this
they have to manage and coordinate everything when any guest checked into hotel as part
of any travel package. In such case they have to coordinate the activities, travel,
entertainment and others. The people of front office department in Hilton provides the
guidance to the guest regarding various local attractions which can be the places which
they can visit to. Such places can be restaurants, tourist places etc. and even they arranges
car services, entry permits for their customers (Byrne, 2015).
 Arranging accommodation : The front office department performs various function
simultaneously. They arrange the accommodation facility for them which can be normal
rooms, non smoking rooms, any customisation required by the customers. This helps
them to provide the customers various services which increases their level of satisfaction.
 Establishes relations : The front office department manages the relations with the guests
that visit to their hotel by taking feedbacks from them and by asking them on regular
basis what additional services they want and expect when they visit next time to their
hotel. This helps the Hilton to provides augmented services to their customers and make
them competitive in comparison to other players in the industry.
From the above it is identified that the front office department is responsible to provides
the guests various assistances that increases their level of satisfaction. They supervises all the
activities of different superiors which helps them to integrates all the efforts so that the guests
does not faces any difficulty when they visit to their hotel (Brown, Thomas and Bosselman,
2015).

Operational role of front office staff of a 5-star hotel
The front office department provides various services to their customers with the help of
the employees. They are the first and the last one who creates impression on the customers which
is why they have to be very active in providing various services to the customers. The
operational role of various persons who provides effective services in Hilton are given below :
1) Front Office Manager
Job summary : Front office manager manages the in-house operations of the hotel to ensure that
highest standard of services are provided to the guests with the aim to maintain the experience
of the visitors. They also establish and maintain the professional relations with the guests of the
hotel and the clients.
Operational role :
The operational role of front office manger is that they manages the front desk operation which
includes cash management and besides that they ensure the compliance of all the procedures and
policies that are must to provide the high standard services to the customers. In Hilton, they
establishes relations with the reservation mangers and review the availability of the room, special
request that the clients has made to the hotel etc. Also they manages and monitor the open and
close day status in order to increase the revenue of the hotel. Other than this they work with
housekeeping and engineering on daily operation to keep a check on the status of the room. The
manager handles the complaints by resolving them and review the compliments that the
customers provides them. They review the front desk logbook to monitor the activities that are
taking place in the hotel. To maintain the relations with the outside parties who provides services
to their guests is their responsibility due to which they coordinate with the service providers.
They tries to build attractive packages for the guests which they provides to the customers so that
they can increase the level of satisfaction (Bowie and et. al. , 2016).
2) Night Auditor
Job summary : The night auditor is responsible for reconciling the paper work. Posting the
accounts of the guests, closing the day transactions. It is their responsibility to greet the guests in
a pleasant and courteous manner while registering their information and settling the accounts of
the guest.
Operational role : The night auditor in Hilton, audit all the paperwork to ensures that the room
charges and the taxes is charged in the accounts of the guests. They verifies that all the

paperwork is correct and balanced along with this stocks the front desk with daily supplies. Other
than this, they register all the arriving guests when they apply TRC service standards. Night
auditor settles the account of the night auditor which helps them to identify the discounts that
they can provide them. They provides the guests various information regarding local attractions
which make their guests feel connected with them. In Hilton the night auditor resolves the
complaints that guest made to the management and consider all the suggestion that are provided
by the customers either for the services or the staff. They also provide information and explains
about the benefits of property amenities and programs to their guests. The night auditor tries to
maintain good attendance record of the employees (Brotherton, 2015).
CONCLUSION
It is concluded from the above report that the hotels has various department in which
integration is important which helps them to serve the guest in a better way and with adequate
services. The front office department manages almost all the major operations of the hotels such
as resoling the issues and the complaints, analyses the charges of the rooms on daily basis etc.
Along with that the operational role of front office manager and the night auditor is analysed
from which it is identified that they manages the customer services, audit the paperwork of the
hotel etc. with the help of which they provides effective services to the guests of their hotels.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Bowie, D. and et. al. , 2016. Hospitality marketing. Routledge.
Brotherton, B., 2015. Researching hospitality and tourism. Sage.
Brown, E.A., Thomas, N.J. and Bosselman, R.H., 2015. Are they leaving or staying: A
qualitative analysis of turnover issues for Generation Y hospitality employees with a
hospitality education. International Journal of Hospitality Management. 46. pp.130-
137.
Byrne, B., 2015. The hospitality of God: A reading of Luke's gospel. Liturgical Press.
Gibson, S. and et. al. , 2016. Mobilizing hospitality: The ethics of social relations in a mobile
world. Routledge.
Kotler, P., 2017. Marketing for hospitality and tourism.
Schuckert, M., Liu, X. and Law, R., 2015. Hospitality and tourism online reviews: Recent trends
and future directions. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing. 32(5). pp.608-621.
Online
Hilton, 2019.[online] Available through :< https://www3.hilton.com/en/about/index.html>
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