Analyzing Accommodation Services: Ownership and Front Office Roles

This report provides a comprehensive overview of accommodation services within the hospitality industry, focusing on the InterContinental Hotels Group. It begins with an introduction to accommodation services, their scale, and size, followed by an examination of different ownership models, including sole traders, partnerships, and bank loans. The report then explores the role of grading, classification, and online reviews in booking accommodations, emphasizing the diverse needs of guests. A significant portion of the report is dedicated to the front office, detailing its organization, including reservation, reception, concierge, and telephone services. Key roles within the front office department, such as front office manager, reservation manager, guest service manager, and night audit manager, are also discussed. The report concludes by summarizing the importance of accommodation services in the hospitality sector and the critical roles of the front office in providing quality services and guest satisfaction, referencing various academic sources.

Managing
Accommodation Services (Part-1)

Cover Content
 Introduction
 Scale and Size of accommodation service
 Different form of ownership available to accommodation service
 Role of different systems when guest look for accommodation service
 Organization of front office with accommodation services
 Role of front office department
 Conclusion
 References

Introduction
Accommodation services refers for providing facilities of housing on temporary basis along with
it's services like hotels, schools, banking, medical practices and other. Inter Continental Hotels
Group is a British multinational hotel, it was founded in April 2003. They have around 5409 hotels
in all around the world, with about 776,982 rooms. In this report, a discussion will take place on
types of accommodation facilities, along with roles of front office of the hotel

Scale and size of the accommodation services within
hospitality industry
In UK, hotel industry has provided a standard of living to different sections of society, as it is one of
the biggest sector that provide employment to peoples. Development of hotel industry in UK has
listed them as one the best countries for investing in this sector, as this also help in making their
country best in service of guests.

The definite amount of hotels in UK and other
countries evaluation is given below
United Kingdom 7978
Dubai 5567
Bangkok 4356
India 8891

Quantity of one, two, three, four and five
star hotels in UK
1-Star 822
2-Star 1578
3-Star 2530
4-Star 1698
5-Star 1530

Quantity of hotels with more bedrooms
Number of Rooms Number of Hotels
0-100 8
101-200 9
101-300 9
More than 300 5

Number of hotels compared with number of B& Bs
in UK
Particular Total number
Hotels in UK 7978
B&Bs (Bed and breakfast) 7023

Different forms of ownership available to
accommodation services.
Types of Ownership/ Purchase
method
Description Advantages Disadvantages
Sole traders They are the solo proprietor of
an organisation, they are the only
one who owns and run a
business (Chiu, and et. al., 2013)
. They are only responsible for
the profits and loss made by
organisation and are personally
liable for business finance.
They use to maintain all the
control of an organisation. There
is no one that can interrupt that
individual while taking
decisions. They are the only
owner of profits.
It is very difficult for sole
proprietors to generate funds for
their business. The failure and
success of an idea is totally
depend on only one person.

Continue…
Association It is community where a
group of people have same
goal or objective.
Ex : A society or club
They use to arrange get
together like dinners and
other for making interaction
between different peers and
enjoy the company of fellow
entrepreneurs (Barlow and et.
al., 2013) .
Members are only and
individually responsible for
any loss occurred behind the
name of organisation.
Partnership It is formal agreement
between two or more parties,
for managing and operating
business. They both use to
share profit and loss.
Having more than one owner
is good for business, as this
help in taking more
appropriate decisions. This
also help in taking the start up
cost lower.
In partnership, every partner
is a working element for
business and have power to
take decision.

Continue…
Family loan Family loan is a fund which
is provided by a family
member to a person.
The biggest advantage of
taking loan from family is
low interest rate and no
burden of repayment of
loan.
The major disadvantage of
this is that, it can ruin the
close relationship between
families.
Bank loan This is one of the common
and most used method of
taking loan. It provide long
term loan for business.
The major advantages of
bank loan is easy re
payment by monthly
instalments, build
relationship between
business and bank, also have
low and fixed interest rate.
The major disadvantage of
this is, very difficult for new
business, as credit score get
low, and a long paper work
and time consuming
method.

Role of grading, classification and online review
while booking accommodation
 Different types of guest visiting InterContinental Hotels Group, have different types needs and
requirements from hotel. For this hotel have to keep in mind that what are the basic requirement
of guest, which can help them in fulfilling the customer's need. Some these basic expectations of
guest are as follow :-
 Essential
 Basic
 Nice to have
 Luxury
 Hyper luxury

Front Office with variety of Accommodation
Services
 Reservation is also known as front office area, this is the place where first interaction between
hotel and guest take place. This is an area where guest get received when they come to visit hotel.
In big hotels, front office get divided into different parts, which have their own independent roles,
such as :-
Sections of Front office Description
Reservation This is the function which make reservations for the
services according to the needs of customers. In this, the
employees which are placed in reservation cell of
InterContinental Hotels get interacted with guests.

Continue…
Reception This is the function, where guest get received by front desk,
and their record get registered in the facilities registry, after
which rooms get assigned to them, and answers for questions
of guest take place (Buhalis and Amaranggana, 2015) .
Concierge Concierge is an employee of a hotel, who goes for receiving
guests. Their duty get changed over night just like of security
guards.

Continue…
Telephone Telephone is one of the basic that must have to there on
front desk. This help person on front desk in providing
solutions to the questions asked by guest and the pitch of
their voice must have to be low. This telephone also help
guest to make any call, which can reduce the problem of
going out of the premises for making call.

Key roles within the front office department
 For a huge organisation like InterContinental Hotels Group, it is not very easy to maintain
multiple works under one heading. Therefore, it is required for them to understand
different works of them and divide them in different departments accordingly. Beneath are
some important departments along with their roles :-
 Front office manager
 Reservation manager

Continue…
 Guest service manager
 Night audit manager

Conclusion
 From the above discussion, it has been concluded that, accommodation is very much
important for hospitality sector, and help providing quality services and comfort to their
guests. There are different types of ownership available for accommodation services,
which have several benefits along with some drawbacks. Along with this, it has been
concluded that different types of guests have different types of requirements, so for
fulfilling them hotel can provide some basic facilities. Front office area is an area where
guest come in contact to hotel for the first time, and they have several responsibilities and
authorities to play.

References
 Burton, M. and Kellaway, M., 2018. Developing and managing high quality services for
people with learning disabilities. Routledge.
 Chiu, C.Y., and et. al., 2013. State vocational rehabilitation services and employment in
multiple sclerosis. Multiple Sclerosis Journal. 19(12). pp.1655-1664.
 Barlow and et. al., 2013. Europe sees mixed results from public-private partnerships for
building and managing health care facilities and services. Health Affairs. 32(1). pp.146-
154.

 THANK YOU