Report on Managing Accommodation Services: Key Aspects and Analysis

This report delves into the realm of accommodation services within the hospitality sector, focusing on the InterContinental Hotel Group as a case study. It begins by defining accommodation services and highlighting their significance in enhancing customer convenience and comfort. The report explores the scale and size of the accommodation services, particularly within the UK hotel market, analyzing hotel classifications, occupancy rates, and revenue. Different forms of ownership available to accommodation services are examined, including sole trader, association, partnership, and limited company structures, along with purchase methods such as family loans, bank loans, and franchises. The role of grading, classification, and online reviews in booking accommodation is discussed, emphasizing customer preferences and requirements. The report then outlines the organization of the front office, detailing various sections like reservation and reception, and the essential equipment used. Key roles within the front office department, such as front office manager and guest service manager, are also covered. The conclusion emphasizes the importance of accommodation services for the hospitality sector and the significance of front office operations in ensuring customer satisfaction.

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 to providing the services of hospitality like schooling, hotels, medical practice
and many other are generally under taken in a heading named accommodation services. It is believed that
accommodation services are one of the most important part in hospitality sector, as they provide services which
increases the convenience and comfort of the customer. InterContinental Hotel group is a British organisation,
which provide services in hospitality sector. It was established on 15th April, 2003 and now have around 5000
hotels in 100 countries.

Scale and size of the accommodation services within
hospitality industry
◦ United Kingdom has become one most of the important country in the world for hotel and hospitality industry,
as they use The Hotel Development index. As hotels in UK increases the living standards of people as they give
occupation to them. Facilities provided by hotels in UK get appreciations from all the world. According to a
survey, it has been analysed that they are providing best accommodation practice in the world (UK Hotel
Market Statistics, 2018).

Hotels classified based on ratings:
UK Hotels CAGR
2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
Occupancy 74.4 76.5 77.6 78.4 77.8
Year-on-year growth (%) 2.80% 1.40% 1.00% -0.80% 1.1
AARR 89.22 88.8 91.55 95.8 97.28
Year-on-year growth (%) -0.50% 3.10% 4.60% 1.50% 2.2
Rooms Yield 66.4 67.96 71.03 75.08 75.64
Year-on-year growth (%) 2.30% 4.50% 5.70% 0.70% 3.3

Summary performance of
London Hotels for the year
2012-2016.
London Hotels CAGR %(2012-2016)
2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
Occupancy 81.4 82.8 82.6 82.8 81.6 0.1
Year-on-year growth (%) 1.80% -0.20% 0.20% -1.40%
AARR 89.22 88.8 91.55 149.7 151.45 0.5
Year-on-year growth (%) -0.80% 0.90% 0.90% 1.10%
Rooms Yield 120.65 121.75 122.61 124 123.58
Year-on-year growth (%) 0.90% 0.70% 1.10% -0.30%

Performance by hotel
category segment.
Segment (AARR) 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
Deluxe (>£150) 4.50% 0.10% -1.80% 0.80% 1.60%
Superior deluxe (>£200) 5.90% 0.10% -3.30% -1.50% 4.10%
International deluxe (£150-200) 1.70% 0.40% 1.40% -0.80% 4.70%
First class (£100-150) 3.20% 1.90% 2.80% -2.30% 0.00%
Business class (£75-100) 1.10% 3.50% 4.10% 6.60% -14.00%
Tourist (<£75) -4.70% 1.70% 9.90% 7.50% -1.50%
Town house/boutique (>£100) 3.00% 2.00% -0.50% 4.10% 7.90%

Mid market rooms yield
growth rate for regional
hotels.Rooms yield growth regional hotels
Segment(AARR) 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
Country House
>£80 2.10% 6.00% 5.50% -0.90% 1.00%
£70-£80 0.20% 4.00% 8.40% 7.00% 4.70%
£60-£70 1.40% 3.80% 9.20% 5.90% 6.40%
£50-£60 2.20% 2.80% 10.70% 8.50% 7.70%
<£50 - 4.10% 5.00% 17.90% 14.00% 5.30%

Different forms of ownership available to
accommodation services.
Types of Ownership/ Purchase
method
Description Advantages Disadvantages
Sole Trader He is the person who is along libel
for all the profits and loss of
organisation.
Only person who have right over the
profits( Burton and Kellaway, 2018).
Not easy to collect fund, and also
may cause loss in taking decisions.
Association These are the group of people which
work on the same interest, like Clubs.
Relationship between members get
improved by meeting in events.
Mainly one person is responsible for
investments when no good returns
carried out.
Partnership Two or more come together and
make investments, take decisions,
and share profits and loss ( Chiu, and
et. al, 2013).
Shared roles and responsibilities lead
to grow faster.
Loss get divided into several parts
according to deed.

Continue…
Limited Company Liabilities for individual remains limited. The tax pay in this is very low then others. In this, privacy is the key and which is not
easy to maintain.
‘Ordinary’ Business Normal transactions are carried out in this. Stack holders have all the rights of voting. Have unlimited Liabilities.
Limited Partnership Consist with a general partner Investors get easily attracted ( Clement and
Bigby, 2012).
Shareholders are liable for sharing profits
and loss.
Limited Liability The responsibilities remain legal for
owners only.
Obligations are not the liabilities of
personal.
Pays for fees than sole traders.
Unincorporated This is the organisation which do not have
any separate legal identity.
Very few legal liabilities. This kind of company must leave of a
court to have the power to bring an action.

Purchase method Description Advantages Disadvantages
Family Loan This loan is taken from the family
members only.
Very low or no rate of interest are
paid.
Can cause to damage of close
relations.
Bank Loan It is the easiest method of taking
loan.
Common purchasing option for a
company.
Low interest rate along with easy
repayment ( Common and et. al,
2016).
The repayment have to be done in
very specific time period otherwise
can cause huge problem.
Franchise The name of organisation is used
by them for earning money.
High rate of success remains high. Reputation may get face some
negative impacts.
Cash Purchase Cash purchase refers to
generating funds without any
financing.
Money get spent on what is
needed.
It can get stolen or misplaced.

Role of grading, classification and online review while
booking accommodation
◦ As every individual is different and also have different requirements. Hotels should to gain knowledge about
it and have to fulfil these requirements of their guests. In today's world, customer use to read online reviews
before booking any accommodation service. The top five requirements of customers which are checked by
customers are as follow :-
Basis Description Examples
Essential It is very important for an organisation to
keep their facilities in proper manner. It is
very essential for them to make sure that
they provide clean rooms to their
customers.
Hygienic room, comfortable and big bed,
clean restaurant, friendly staff, etc.

Continue…
Basic It is very important for a hotel to provide proper
lighting facilities and also provide proper service
while serving foods and snacks to their guests.
Meal preferences, snacks, lighting facilities, water
facilities,etc.
Nice-to-have It is required for hotel staff to make cheerful
welcome of their customers.
Smile on face of employees, Wi-Fi, good room
services, laundry.
Luxury Provide safe and secure environment for their
customers.
High security, theatre, spa, luxury cars.
Hyper-luxury InterContinental hotel groups provide golf course
for their special customers.
Golf course, private check-in, personal kitchen.

Continue…
◦ The most common name of front office department is reception, at this place customers come in contact with hotel for
the first time and this is the place where customers get arrived to hotel. In huge hotel organisations like InterContinental
has divided their front office department into several parts, these are as beneath :-
Sections of front office Description Equipments
Reservation Reservation is an area where customer make request for
booking the services offered by organisation and their
request get received here only. For this, organisation
have some specialised employees which knows how to
interact with customers
For a person on reservation desk, one of the most
required equipment is telephone, they use to receive the
call from their customers which are staying in their hotel
along with this they also have to receive calls from
customers who want to book or to gain any information
about their services.

Front Office with variety of
Accommodation Services
Reception Reception is an area, where customer get first
physical interaction with hotel, here staff from
use to receive the guest and also help them in
making entries in hotel record.
Reception need equipments like, fax machine,
computer system, entry registers, printers and
etc.
Concierge The employee in hotel who use to take the duty
of receiving the guest and carrying them from
gate to their rooms in multi-tenant
organisations like hotel is known as concierge.
The position for these employees are decided
by the security guards.
They generally need trolley for taking and
dropping the luggage of their guests. Along
with this, for communicating with each other,
they need Walkie-talkie.

Key roles within the front office
department
◦ There are ample numbers of roles, jobs and responsibilities which front office department of an
organisation like InterContinental have to play. As, these all help them in maintaining the products and
services provided by them. Some of these are as follow :-
◦ Front office manager
◦ Reservation manager
◦ Guest service manager
◦ Night audit manager

Conclusion
◦ For the above study, it has been concluded that for hospitality sector services of accommodation is very
much important. The comfortability and safety of customers get ensured by providing proper managed
accommodation facilities. This report helped in gaining knowledge about the importance of housekeeping
department and also helped in studying the roles and responsibilities which front office use to play.

References
◦ 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.
◦ Brunner-Sperdin et. al., 2012. It is all about the emotional state: Managing tourists’ experiences. International
Journal of Hospitality Management. 31(1). pp.23-30.
◦ Buhalis, D. and Amaranggana, A., 2015. Smart tourism destinations enhancing tourism experience through
personalisation of services. In Information and communication technologies in tourism 2015 (pp. 377-389).
Springer, Cham

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