Importance of Front Office Operation in Marriott Hotel

This report discusses the importance of front office operation in Marriott Hotel and the role of the front office manager and night auditor. It also provides an overview of the Property Management System (PMS) used by Marriott.

REPORT

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Importance of front office operation......................................................................................3
Role of Front office manager.................................................................................................4
Role of Night auditor..............................................................................................................5
PMS system............................................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
The front office with the hotel plays a crucial role in the hotel and the hospitality
industry. This is because of the reason that this department is the face of the hotel and the
consumers get attracts to the hotel because of the good image of the front office manager
(Melián-González and Bulchand-Gidumal, 2017). The present study is based on the hotel
Marriott International. This is a multinational hospitality company and has a range of hotels and
lodging facilities. This hotel chain was founded in the year 1927 by J. Willard Marriott and Alice
Marriott. The present report will outline the importance of front office operation for the hotel. It
will also discuss the role of the front office manager and the night auditor within the hotel and its
success. In the end a brief overview of the PMS system will be done to enhance the use of this
system within the hotel.
MAIN BODY
Importance of front office operation
In Marriott hotel front office is defined as the department which includes the reception
and the front desk which involves all the work of the hotel that is receiving the guests, greeting
them, solving their queries, and other activities like making reservations, housekeeping,
marketing and other related activities. This front office is the department where the guests and
customer comes as they enter the hotel. Therefore, this department is very useful and important
for the hotel in managing its business (Sharma, 2017). The importance of this for Marriott is
discussed in the adjoining points connected below-
The front office plays an important role within the hospitality industry as well as in the
hotel. This is because of the reason that this is the only one department which deals with direct
interaction with the consumers. This can also be called as the reception of the hotel. This is
because of the reason that here only the consumers get interacted with the hotel and its services.
Another importance of this front office operation is that this department helps in knowing
the requirements of the consumers (Shin, Perdue and Kang, 2019). This is because of the reason
that this department is only responsible for the interacting with the consumers and with help of
this interaction the hotel comes to know about the needs and requirements of the consumers then
this department carry forwards this information to other departments and then services are
provided in accordance to those requirements.

Another importance of this operation is that this plays an intermediate or bridging role
between the consumers and the hotel. This is because of the reason that the front office manager
passes on the information collected from the consumers to the further working team of the hotel
(Agarwal and Shukla, 2016).
Also, this role is important because of the reason that if the consumer or the guest has any
problem then they will contact with the front office therefore, this front office plays a very
crucial role in the business of hotel.
Role of Front office manager
The front office manager is the individual who is placed at the front office desk of the
hotel that is the reception. The major role of the front office s to maintain the front office desk so
that it attracts the consumers and they come in large numbers. Other then this the different roles
of front office manager in managing the business is discussed in the connected points below-
The major role played by this front office manager is that of the liaison. That is it plays
the role of connector or a bridge between the general manager and the staff. This is because of
the reason that all the instruction which the front office manager gets from the general manager
he passes on to the staff. And if the staffs are having any query or problem then the front office
manager passes on to the general manager (Gholami, Aminifar and Shahidehpour, 2016).
Another role of the front office manager is to provide for professional services to the
consumers and the guests. This is because of the reason that the image of the whole hotel is in
hands of the front office manager. This is because of the reason the front office manager is the
one who interacts with the guests and if the manager will not be a professional one and efficient
in its working then the consumers will not like the place and will bad mouth the image of the
hotel.
Another important role of the front office manager is that it arranges for the schedule of
the whole working of the hotel. This is because of the reason that this manager knows that what
all services are required by the consumers and the guest. Therefore, the work to be undertaken
for the fulfilling the needs of the consumers the front office manager can only divide the work to
accomplish and satisfy the needs and requirements of the consumers (Schwarz, Hall and Shibli,
2015).

Role of Night auditor
This is an individual who is responsible for managing and handling both the duties of the
front desk manager and the duties of the accountant within the hotel. This person is responsible
for the whole day’s business and stays overnight in the hotel to meet the needs of the guest if
any. This person plays an important role within Marriott hotel (Wulansari, 2018). The role of
night auditor is very important and the role played by him in the hotel is discussed in the
connected points below-
The major role played by the night auditor in Marriott is of the accountant. This is
because of the reason that accounting is very necessary for the hotel to ascertain that profit or the
loss suffered by the hotel in the financial year. Thus the night auditor plays a crucial role in
ascertaining the profit or the loss of the company.
Another role is that in the night when the front office manager is not present then the
night auditor plays the role of the front office manager. It takes care of the needs of the guests
and consumers and if they have any problem the night auditor tries to salve it.
The another role is of the handling the check- in, check- out, reservations and booking
and also handling the problems and difficulties of the guest at the time of night (Artto, Ahola and
Vartiainen, 2016). This is because of the reason that at this time the front office manager is not
there so it is the duty of the night auditor to manage these entire tasks.
The another role of the night auditor is of managing the cash and to balance the accounts
of the hotel and to keep all the financial records up to date and in correct manner.
PMS system
This is also known as Property Management System which is a local administration system
developed to administer the hotels. This system is used by Marriott in order to maintain the
reservations, booking, availability of the rooms and other services, check- in and check- outs,
managing the profiles of the guests and many other related tasks with the help of the software.
The most common system which is used by Marriott is the OPERA property management system
provided by Oracle. This is a comprehensive and scalable solution which is available for the
hotel in three levels that is premium, standard and lite. This system helps hotel in simplifying the
work of guest profile management, accommodation management, managing the housekeeping,
multi language and multi property configuration and also managing the global currency support.
This is because of the reason that the consumers come from different places and their languages

are different from one another and also brings in different currencies (Melián-González and
Bulchand-Gidumal, 2016). Therefore, this system helps the hotel in managing all the issues at
the same time and with help of one software only.
CONCLUSION
With the help of the study of the report it was outlined and concluded that the front office
operation is very important for the hotel to have. This is because of the reason that this is the
department which interacts with the consumers coming and deals with their problems and
queries. Therefore, if this department will not be good and efficient then the consumers will not
like in interacting with the department or coming to the hotel again. The present report discussed
about the role of the front office operations within the hotel and it was outlined that it plays a
mediator between the consumers and the hotel.
Further it discussed the role of the front office manager that it plays the liasioning role
between the general manager and the staff of the hotel. Also the role of the night auditor was
discussed. It was discussed that the night auditor plays the role of both the front office manager
and the accountant of the hotel. In the end the PMS system that is Property management system
was discussed and it was outlined that OPERA is the most common system used in the hotel.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Agarwal, P. and Shukla, D., 2016. Customer Satisfaction on Front-office Service Quality at
Holiday Inn, Bangkok. St. Theresa Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences. 1(2).
Artto, K., Ahola, T. and Vartiainen, V., 2016. From the front end of projects to the back end of
operations: Managing projects for value creation throughout the system
lifecycle. International Journal of Project Management. 34(2). pp.258-270.
Gholami, A., Aminifar, F. and Shahidehpour, M., 2016. Front lines against the darkness:
Enhancing the resilience of the electricity grid through microgrid facilities. IEEE
Electrification Magazine. 4(1). pp.18-24.
Melián-González, S. and Bulchand-Gidumal, J., 2016. A model that connects information
technology and hotel performance. Tourism Management. 53. pp.30-37.
Melián-González, S. and Bulchand-Gidumal, J., 2017. Information technology and front office
employees’ performance. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality
Management. 29(8). pp.2159-2177.
Schwarz, E.C., Hall, S.A. and Shibli, S., 2015. Sport facility operations management: A global
perspective. Routledge.
Sharma, S., 2017. IMPROVEMENT PLAN FOR HANDLING GUEST COMPLAINTS BY
FRONT OFFICE DEPARTMENT. CASE OF BURI RASA RESORT IN KOH PHANGAN,
THAILAND (Doctoral dissertation, STAMFORD INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY).
Shin, H., Perdue, R.R. and Kang, J., 2019. Front desk technology innovation in hotels: A
managerial perspective. Tourism Management. 74. pp.310-318.
Wulansari, A.P., 2018. Analisis Service Quality pada Departemen Front Office Favehotel
Rungkut Surabaya.