Strategic Enhancements for Accor's Front Desk Services

This essay delves into the critical importance of the front office department in the hospitality industry. Recognized as a crucial touchpoint between guests and hotel operations, the front office plays an integral role in shaping guest experiences from check-in to check-out. Despite Accor's exemplary efforts in meeting customer needs, continuous improvements are necessary to sustain market leadership and achieve success. The essay discusses how maintaining hygienic food supplies, providing entertainment options for families, and ensuring personalized services like pick-up or drop-off can significantly enhance guest satisfaction. Additionally, it explores the challenges of monitoring and supervising outsourced functions and their impact on aligning with a hotel's core objectives. By implementing these recommendations, hotels can foster positive customer experiences, thereby attracting more clientele and establishing a competitive advantage in the industry.

Running head: ACCOMMODATION MANAGEMENT
Accommodation Management
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Table of Contents
Background of the Accor Hotels.................................................................................................2
The front office department.........................................................................................................2
Role of the front office department.............................................................................................3
Role of the customers and the customer’s needs related to the front office department.............4
Steps of the accommodation manager to ensure the hotel in meeting customer needs and
creating positive experiences.......................................................................................................6
Outsourcing..................................................................................................................................6
Advantages and disadvantages of moving towards an outsourcing solution..............................6
Recommendations........................................................................................................................8
References:....................................................................................................................................10

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Background of the Accor Hotels
Accommodation is of one of the primary concerns of the international and domestic
travelers. It is the biggest component of their expenditure and plays a vital part in their overall
experience of visiting a new place. Therefore, management of accommodation is the main aspect
of hotel or tourism industry. The hotel Accor was established by Dubrule and Gerard Pelisson in
the year 1967 and has established itself as one of the biggest and famous hotel chains in the
entire globe (Kimes & Ho, 2017). It has 4,200 hotels in 95 different countries and each of its
hospitality experts share same passion and take care of all their guests globally. Accor has one of
the most famous hotels in the list of tourism industry. This hotel chain is offering the largest
brand portfolio that is encompassing internationally acclaimed luxury brands to popular mid-
scale and budget brands. The hotel has a list of more than 20 brands, ranging from luxury to
economy, that are meeting every customer’s desires. Some of the luxury brands include Raffles
and Banyan tree and that of the economy brands include Ibis, Novotel and Mama
(Accorhotels.group, 2018). They consider each of their guest as unique and promises to meet
their every demands. They are the true example of worldly elegance, style and hospitality.
The front office department
The front office department is the most vital part of every hotel as it is the main
communication center of the building (Schipper et al. 2013). It plays a very important part in the
overall success of its operations. According to its efficiency, the quality and the satisfaction of
guests are differed and it is one of the highly noticeable departments in every tourism industry
(Bardi 2013). It consists of numerous segments, starting from the reception desk, cashier, front
office manager, telephone operator etc.

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Role of the front office department
The reception desk is the focal center of communication. It is generally consists of the
front office manager, cashier, assistant front office manager, reservationist, and the telephone
operator. They welcome the visitors and are responsible to strike the first impression about the
hotel in their mind. Each of them has their own and diverse duties to conduct. They are:
1. Responsibilities of the Front office manager
It is the duties of the front office manger to operate the front office and to ensure that
all the policies of the hotel are well assembled. He reviews the status of the VIP room
blocking and the availability of the rooms on a daily basis. He trains and monitors every
staff as well with the highest priority of guest service and satisfaction. He must make sure
that the budge and the cost effectiveness in the front office is attained (Wang and Ritchie
2012). He also approves the duty rosters, reviews the logbook and monitors each
activities of the front desk.
2. Responsibilities of the Cashier
The cashier receives the payments of the guests, assimilates the gathered reports,
and records on non-monetary and computes the total transactions (Perry et al. 2017).
They provide checks of cash for the customers and supervise the checkout stations for
them. Sorting and counting of the currencies are also one of their primary duties. With
the same, often, the cashiers offer their customers to carryout the services after the
competition of transactions.
3. Responsibilities of the Assistant front office manager
The responsibilities of the assistant front office manager are more or less as that
of the main front office manager. However, some of the dissimilarities are- they monitors

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the operational activities of the front desk and monitors that whether or not highest
standard of services are provided to the guests. They look after the completion of
payrolls, shift closing of the staffs, room deposits, refunds and rebates. They conducts
meetings to different management issues, performs trainings and check-ins and checkouts
processes. They also prepare schedules for the staffs and monitor the labor costs.
4. Responsibilities of the Reservationist
The main duties of the reservationist are to assist the customers and give them
answers to the various enquiries and to advice them accordingly. They help the customers
with filling up the registration forms and ensure that each of the customers have access to
the hotel services without any type of jerks.
5. Responsibilities of the Telephone operator
The responsibilities of the telephone operator in hotel industry are same like that
in the other places. They answer the calls of the customers, records their requests and
coordinate the responses of the guest issues.
Role of the customers and the customer’s needs related to the front office department
The customers and their needs play a very important role in the overall operation of the
front desk in a hotel. Various segments of guests arrive at Accor. They are from multiple
entities. Some guests arrives with their families to spent their holidays, some couples come to
spent their honeymoons and there are some international guests too, who either comes to explore
the place, to socialize or to attend business meetings (Diaz and Koutra 2013). Each of them has
different needs, different requirements and different patterns of traveling.
1. Families: The family tourists normally plan their trip in advance and they always
wants to increase their time. They are a package deal. They are very interested in

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sightseeing and organized tours. However, most of them consist of perpetually noisy
children and their exhausted parents. Hence, they are loud and they need a little more
care and space than the other segments. They require children friendly activities, local
maps and information on the various sightseeing spots. Providing them with the same
will provide the hotel a great opportunity to offer them great value with absolutely no
cost.
2. The corporate clients: The primary purpose of traveling of the corporate clients is to
attend business meetings and conferences in the city. They are always convenience
conscious. Hence, they are attracted and focused more towards the comfortable
accommodation, available food options in the hotel, and the local transportation.
3. The solo travelers: The solo travelers are typically young crowd. They are very price
sensitive as they wants to save their money as much as possible. They are more
interested in learning about the local culture, language, customs and traditions.
Providing them with information like local maps, events list, and list of the
sightseeing spots will help them greatly and with the same will increase the value of
the hotel.
4. The Seniors: The seniors or the elderly guests are more conscious about the staff
assistance and the local transportation. Like the other guests, they too require local
spot options and maps but also want options that are easy to facilitate. Tours that will
directly pick them up from the hotel will be a plus. They prefer noiseless, friendly and
pleasant surroundings.

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Steps of the accommodation manager to ensure the hotel in meeting customer needs and
creating positive experiences
The responsibilities of accommodation managers of every sector are more or less same.
They shares similar responsibilities in order to meet their customer demands in the field of
accommodation. However, the duties of a true accommodation manager are to promote and
develop a positive relationship with the guests and the staffs, to ensure that a smooth running
accommodation facility that includes the safety of the guests and adequate security is maintained
in the hotel. He must monitor the operations of the room service departments and ensure that a
high quality standard of services is provided to the customers. He must also ensure that each of
the customer segment’ demands are completed.
Outsourcing
Most of the companies in today’s world prefers the process of outsource for the different
types of services that they provide, such as the food and beverage services, call centre services,
outlet-mail services etc (Hemmington and King 2013). These processes are mainly handled by
the outsource holders and the suppliers upon which they completely trust (Leeman and Reynolds
2012).
Advantages and disadvantages of moving towards an outsourcing solution
Advantages-
1. The main advantage of outsourcing is that it helps in reduction of the fixed cost (Espino-
Rodriguez 2014). It will enable the hotel to run only with the expense of that is used by
the guests. No other addition of expenses is required, which means that moving towards

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outsourcing will enable the hotel to hire different other services of other companies and
that too based on their own workload.
2. The outsourcing suppliers or the professionals will supply the hotel with better quality
products and services such as, at the times of advertising campaigns or marketing
designs. It is observed that the tourism management is walking hand in hand with the
technology. The companies who are specialized in technological services for the hotel
industry will supply them with software or programs or applications in order to manage
their allotment and organize the warehouses. They will also help them in controlling the
other internal processes (Lamminmaki 2012).
Disadvantages-
1. Moving towards an outsourcing solution is best in every aspect but there are some bad
sides too, as outsourcing may lead to loss of control of the hotel on their own business
affairs. It is tough for any company to commend a third party as its becomes tough to
ensure that those suppliers are delivering a standard services (Caruth, Haden and Caruth
2013).
2. There will be a high risk of incorrect alignment of the strategic aspects and the objectives
of the hotel (Davila, Epstein and Shelton 2012). When the external elements start to
interfere in the internal affairs of any business, it becomes difficult for the company to
transmit its main objective properly. With the same, the process of monitoring and
supervising will become very tough.

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Recommendations
There is no doubt about the fact that Accor is serving best to meet its customer’s need
and to satisfy them in every manner. Still, changes are important in every industry for sustaining
its current position in the market as well as to achieve success. However, as it is discussed above
that the front desk plays a very important part in the overall success of the hotel. Hence, it must
ensure that the food supply for the customers is healthy and hygienic. For the guests who come
with their families; proper room, source of entertainment like TV should be there. During the
departure and arrival of the guests, the front desk must welcome and thank them for their arrival
and for providing them the opportunity to serve them. In addition, if they require any additional
facilities such as the pick or drop facilities, the front desk department must fulfill them. This will
develop the customer experiences and will the attention of more people towards their services.

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References:
Accorhotels.group. (2018). AccorHotels Group – Worldwide leader in Hospitality and services –
Feel Welcome. [online] Available at: http://www.accorhotels.group/ [Accessed 9 Jan. 2018].
Bardi, J.A., 2013. Hotel front office management. John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Caruth, D.L., Haden, S.S.P. and Caruth, G.D., 2013. Critical factors in human resource
outsourcing. Journal of Management Research, 13(3), p.1.
Davila, T., Epstein, M. and Shelton, R., 2012. Making innovation work: How to manage it,
measure it, and profit from it. FT press.
Díaz, E. and Koutra, C., 2013. Evaluation of the persuasive features of hotel chains websites: A
latent class segmentation analysis. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 34, pp.338-
347.
Espino-Rodríguez, T.F. and Lai, P.C., 2014. Activity outsourcing and competitive strategy in the
hotel industry. The moderator role of asset specificity. International Journal of Hospitality
Management, 42, pp.9-19.
Hemmington, N. and King, C., 2013. Key dimensions of outsourcing hotel food and beverage
services. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 12(4), pp.256-261.
Kimes, S. E., & Ho, J. (2017). Revenue management in luxury hotels. Journal of Revenue and
Pricing Management, 1-5.
Lamminmaki, D., 2012. A management accounting perspective on hotel outsourcing. Accounting
and Financial Management, p.341.

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Leeman, D. and Reynolds, D., 2012. Trust and outsourcing: Do perceptions of trust influence the
retention of outsourcing providers in the hospitality industry?. International Journal of Hospitality
Management, 31(2), pp.601-608.
Perry, D., Smith, Z., White, D. and Wade, G., Wal Mart Stores Inc, 2017. Systems and methods
for identifying transaction capabilities of cashier. U.S. Patent 9779395B2.
Schipper, L., Meijboom, B., Luijkx, K. and Schols, J., 2013. Front/back office considerations in
the operational access to long-term care for older people: Findings of a multiple case
study. International Journal of Healthcare Management, 6(4), pp.252-262.
Schniederjans, M.J., Schniederjans, A.M. and Schniederjans, D.G., 2015. Outsourcing and
insourcing in an international context. Routledge.
Wang, J. and Ritchie, B.W., 2012. Understanding accommodation managers’ crisis planning
intention: An application of the theory of planned behaviour. Tourism Management, 33(5),
pp.1057-1067.