Hotel Room Division Management: Workshop Learning and Experience

This report provides a detailed analysis of various workshops related to hotel room division management. The report covers key aspects of hotel operations, including the importance of communication, front office functions, and the role of the room division department in revenue generation. It delves into the workings of the hotel reservation department, highlighting online and offline reservation methods, and the skills needed for effective guest interaction. The report further explores the front office department's functions, emphasizing its role in guest satisfaction from pre-arrival to post-departure. It also discusses the significance of managing guest experience, the role of switchboard operators, housekeeping management, and health and safety protocols. Conflict resolution strategies, the night audit process, and overbooking practices are also examined, along with safety and security measures, financial management, and staffing considerations within the room division. The report emphasizes the importance of employee motivation and the use of technology in enhancing hotel operations and guest satisfaction.

Management of Rooms
Division
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Table of Contents
Table of Contents.............................................................................................................................2
Learning of each week along with past and current experience..................................................3
Workshop 1: Communication, importance of front office, room division department..............3
Workshop 2: Hotel reservation department work........................................................................3
Workshop 3: Front office department work and their functions.................................................4
Workshop 4: Managing guest experience and roles of switchboard operator.............................4
Workshop 5: How housekeeping management and health and safety department work............5
Workshop 6: Stages of conflict resolution...................................................................................6
Workshop 7: Night audit and overbooking.................................................................................6
Workshop 8: Safety and security in room division.....................................................................7
Workshop 9: Financial management, labour costing and staffing..............................................8
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11
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Learning of each week along with past and current experience
In the context of guest management and management of all activities of hotel, I can say
that there are several departments who have to play their roles. There are several factors which
need to be considered for satisfying guests and employees and having knowledge about all
departments which include: housekeeping, front office, management department, customers’
services or conflict resolution etc. I have participated in different workshop related to each and
all departments of hotel such as:
Description
Workshop 1: Communication, importance of front office, room division department
In first work shop which was related to room division department, I can say that I learned so
many things while working in this department and attending workshop. I got to know that room
division department of a hotel has to play several roles. One of the main skills which play an
important role in room division is communication. Communication makes manager aware about
situations of rooms as how many rooms are vacant, how many rooms are reserved etc. I think
that housekeeping and front office department is mainly responsible for increasing revenue of
hotel. Because it is mainly responsible for guest services, charges and registration maintenance
(Rothaermel, 2016).
In the context of examination, I identified that manager in front office department has to
play several roles such as: satisfying guest by making sure that they are receiving effective and
qualitative services, making sure that all employees are interacting in an effective manner or not.
If they find any problem related to interdepartmental communication then they improve modes
of communication. So, I can say that front office department, manager and communication plays
an important role (Al Jahwari, D.S., Sirakaya-Turk, E. and Altintas, V., 2016).
Workshop 2: Hotel reservation department work
In this workshop I learned so many things about ways of managing reservation and importance
of hotel reservation department. I came to know that hotel reservation department is not only
limited to make reserve rooms for guests but they also have to manage payment by making
customers aware about all modes of payment. There are 2 ways of reserving rooms by guests like
offline and online. Nowadays online reservation is the most used as it is the maximum share of
hotel reservations. In the context of roles which reservation department plays which I identified
include: Booking guests into the hotel, forecasting reservations and help hotel in increasing
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revenue by entering actual and accurate data or informations of guests and also providing every
informations about reservations (Wood, 2017).
In addition, I also found requirement of skills in reservation department and salesman such
as: skills of influencing guests by suggesting effective offers, having knowledge of all current
facilities in order to make customers aware about all facilities and influence them to book rooms.
For example: If one of the guest want to book room for anniversary purpose then it is important
for reservation department to have skills to influence and make able to reserve room (Lee, Jeong
and Lee, 2017). By making them sure that you will decorate room in free and providing
attractive offers, reservation department perform their roles.
Workshop 3: Front office department work and their functions
In this workshop I learned that how front office department is one of the departments of
hotel which plays an important role in generating revenue and which roles and functions they
play. Receptionists and front office department not only handle and manage calls but also is
responsible for satisfying guests till their arrivals to their departure (Priyono and Yulita, 2017).
They pay roles in pre arrivals, arrivals of guests, stay of guest and after departure as well. Before
arrival they manage call and give details to guests about room vacancy, types of rooms vacant
and all others features. After their arrivals they provide informations about ways of rooms,
nearby destinations, restaurants and others. They make sure that rooms are clean, safe and
hygienic.
After departure they are being in the contact with guests and follow up them in knowing
about their experience, suggestions for improvement etc. So, overall it can be said that making
guests feel pleased, satisfied by welcoming them, customer billing, assigning rooms and
responding each query they increase revenue. I also learned all terminology which is important
for making guest aware about them such as do not disturb, sleep out, occupied, vacant and
others. After workshop, I learned importance of motivating employees for making them able to
support hotel in accomplishing their goals (Modic and Damij, 2018).
Workshop 4: Managing guest experience and roles of switchboard operator
In work shop 4, I learned that rather, front office and hotel reservation department,
switchboard operator also plays an important role in managing activities and supporting hotels in
accomplishing their goals. In this context, I got to know that managing guest experience is one of
the main tasks for having a good image and becoming market leader. For this purpose
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switchboard operator plays several roles an perform functions such as: answering telephones
and giving answers of all questions of each department, transferring informations in each
department related to switchboard, electricity and others (Ford and Sturman, 2018). One of the
main functions is managing equipment and handling emergency situations in an effective manner
for reducing accidents and injury at workplace.
In addition, I also found that Concierge department plays several functions such as:
providing informations, making and managing guests’ reservations, handling mails and
transferring important informations to each department and arranging transportation. They
require to make sure that guests are safe and happy in hotel and with its services or not and all
departments have appropriate informations related to their functions or not. So, overall I can
interpret that by participating in each workshop I learned so many new things, like skills required
ways of managing guests experience etc.
Workshop 5: How housekeeping management and health and safety department work
By participating in this workshop I learned and got to know importance of housekeeping
department in hotel as how their functions play an important role and allow hotel in satisfying
guests as well as employees. Inventory control, managing health and safety is one of the
important functions of housekeeping and health and safety department (Kadry, Bagdasaryan and
Kadhum, 2017). There are some functions which housekeeping department play is cleaning
rooms, maintaining expenses, responding to customers’ request regarding managing all
equipment's and resources like towel, toiletries etc. Overall it can be said that satisfying
customers while stay of them at hotel and communicating with front office department for
knowing that at what time guests are arriving, which rooms they have to check and clean etc.
They also control inventory for satisfying guests and providing them all resources and do not
make them suffer.
In addition, I can also say that health and safety management is other important function as
guests prefer to visit and go in hotels that are safe and they can feel safe (Park and et.al., 2019).
Safety and health department make sure that all employees are safe at workplace by
implementing safety and health policies, tools and techniques. Maintaining recording and report
keeping system for monitoring injuries and illness.
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Workshop 6: Stages of conflict resolution
Conflict resolution in hotel is one of the important functions in order to maintain healthy
relation with employees and make employees able to stay with hotels for the long run. There are
several situations arises which lead conflict among employees like employing different culture
and ethnicity of people in workplace. It creates miscommunication due to languages problems
and miscommunication lead errors in functions of people which lead conflicts.
For conflict resolution, leader and manger plays an important role as they motivate
employees by providing those rewards and training. By getting rewards and promotional
opportunities they feel valued and motivated by which they focus on their work. They also focus
on team working and training for improving their skills about languages and ways of performing
functions which increase confidence in employees and they perform with concentration. One of
the main aims of conflict resolution is to increase staff and customers’ retention rate by
encouraging them and motivating them (Bercovitch, 2019). I also learned that for conflict
resolution leaders require having influencing, active listening and communication skills by which
they can encourage employees and listen to their queries and make the best decision.
Workshop 7: Night audit and overbooking
In the workshop 7, I learned a lot of things about night audit, overbooking as well as report
management. In this workshop I came across the roles of auditor and that they plays a central
role within hotels and in the room divisions. I learned that night auditor is mainly responsible for
assembling as well as balancing the day to day transactions of hotel. Besides this, some of their
tasks includes reservations, emergency systems etc. This whole lecture has increased my overall
knowledge of the night audit process and overbooking. I discovered that the night audit process
is highly imperative and starting from the check in of guests to preparing night audit report,
management of hotel proceeds in the systematic manner (Nguyen, 2019). This workshop taught
me the through meaning of night audit and hence made me aware about importance of night
audit. Night audit is highly essential for the hotel as it helps the hotel management to interpret
operations as well as assists in preparing daily financial reports. During this whole lecture, I also
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came across about the various tasks of night manager and thus include room checks, monitoring
the guests flow, safety as well as security etc. This workshop also increased my knowledge about
overbooking which was a completely new concept for me. Overbooking is basically accepting
the reservations for additional rooms than which are actually available by estimating number of
the stayovers, walk-ins etc. The main reason behind why organizations actually rely on
overbooking is that to overcome problem of the no-shows as well as late cancellations. From this
overall knowledge about overbooking, I learned that hotels should have strict occupancy
management policy. This policy should be based upon management of the guest occupancy
classes like those who have confirmed reservations, stayovers etc. I came across the occupancy
formula which hotels should use in order to overcome the problem of overbooking (Wood,
2017).
Workshop 8: Safety and security in room division
Roles of front office and security staff
In the context of hotels, it can be said that safety and security is one of the main factors
which is being considered by customers or guests. There are some 5 star and well-known/popular
hotels who have been attacked by terrorists and came into consideration because of safety and
security (Sennewald and Baillie, 2020). People want to go in hotels who use effective security
tools. Front office and security staff plays an important role in managing or mitigating risks at
workplace of hotels for all employees, staff members and customers as well.
In house Vs outsourcing security: There is difference between outsourcing and in house hotel
security. In outsourcing security, hotels outsource nationwide company who is specialized in
security. In this type, hotels hire off duty police officers and other security staff. Vesta hospital
makes an effective use of this system or outsourcing security. By contacting local police it
manages security and solve problems which create with people come to the city to party and not
able to control themselves and lead violence (Outsource vs In house security, Chuck
Dobrosielski, 2019). Whereas, those hotels who have more than 500 rooms focus on in house
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security. By spending money of security staff and effective tools, risks are being measured and
mitigated in timely manner.
Safety measures are being created in order to protect both people and property from theft,
injury and accident by negligence and other reasons. In addition, in the context of security
measures I can say that these are being created for the same reason or for protecting people and
property from injury and loss by deliberate actions taken by people. So, it is important for hotels
to provide security and make sure to guests and staff members that they are safe at workplace.
Different types of accident can happen due to hot water, wet floor in bathroom, lack of
lighting, electrical hazards so, it is important to focus on all these areas. So, in this type or
situations, front office department and security staff play several roles, security department
respond to guests when they got stuck in some emergency cases like fire, illness and theft. They
are also suggested choosing stairs at the time of emergency and fire and contact to the security
number (Small and Wainwright, 2018). By having proper rubbish disposal bin and ways, pest
control, monitoring solution, fire drill testing and proper maintenance, all risks are being
mitigated and ensuring safety and security to guests and employees as well. In addition, by
implementing some detectors like smoke, heat, sprinklers, notification alarms or sirens,
hospitality industry is making their workplace safe.
Workshop 9: Financial management, labour costing and staffing
In this workshop I learned that how cost is being managed and roles played by research
and development manager. In the context of cost related to turnover and reasons or turnover I
can say that Employees turnover is one of the main challenges which not only effects on image
of hotels but also increases turnover cost as hotels require hiring new workers as well. In
Australian accommodation sector in which it is identified that the major costs are contributed to
labour turnover. This cost and staff turnover has direct impact on quality or level of services,
value and customers experience (Labour turnover cost, 2010). 4-5 star hotels of Australia find
difficulties in getting skilled workforce due to work load and if they employ then they find
difficulties in retaining them due to lack of safety and other factors. Role overload, wages
problems, lack of training and promotional opportunities are some reasons of staff turnover
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which increases cost. It increases cost because, hotels have to invest in some materials like
uniform for staff members, lean, printing, stationery and others and when staff members leave
the company then investment in these materials vain or increase cost.
I can say that hotels need to make profit and loss statement in order to know their actual
profit margin and cost in all areas. It also helps them out in identifying all factors which affect
profit such as: market mix of guests, labour cost, investment in star rating system, control system
of controllable expenses (Brien, Thomas and Brown, 2017). There are some ways by which
profit and loss can be managed in an effective manner such as: understanding forecasted
occupancy, by understanding forecasted average time and by making an effective plan.
By working in this workshop I also got to know some effective tools which can be used
for controlling labour cost and increasing profit margin. It is important for managers to make
sure that if all workers are giving proper time in completing their functions like cleaning rooms.
It can be identified by measuring or considering efficiency of staff starting and finishing time.
For managing labour cost and safety it is also important for hotels of Australia to implement acts
or legislation regulated by federal law such as fair work act 2019 etc.
It is also important for manager to allot duties to all employees as per their experience
and skills. It is one of the main keys of staff or employees' satisfaction which can easily be
maintained by preparing an effective daily coaster plan (Ball and et.al., 2019). This list and plan
shows employees as what they are expected to do. How they do and when they do. I believe that
duty roaster make sure that staff get enough time to note their working time for weeks and
months accordingly.
CONCLUSION
It has been summarized that room division management plays an important role within
hotels and thus forms its core area as it refers an important function of overseeing both front
office and housekeeping works and managing all functions in an effective manner. Firstly the
communication of the manager is highly essential with front office for increasing satisfaction of
the guests. It has shown importance of communication in front office, housekeeping health and
safety and all other departments for making all members aware about recent trends, policies and
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informations related to guests. Hotel reservations department also is the inseparable part of hotels
which works both online and offline for increasing goodwill of the hotels. Besides this, functions
of the front office are equally important and thus serve as the fundamental aspect of hotels where
they are responsible for managing all the activities from check-ins to cleanliness. Along with
this, housekeeping management as well as health and safety department works in collaboration.
This collaboration is highly important in order to ensure the safety and security of guests. It has
also discussed importance of providing motivation and rewards to both employees and guests as
it allows hotels in retaining them with the company and encouraging them to support hotel in
accomplishing goals. Conflict is also one of the another pat of hotels thus in order to ensure the
healthy relation with guests as well as between employees, conflict resolution is extremely
necessary. There are various stages of conflict resolution which helps hotels to resolve the
conflicts. Besides this, night auditor also plays an essential role within room division and their
roles vary in different hotels. Lastly it will show important of implementation of policies and
theories for performing functions of hotel and room division management. The major role of
night auditor is balancing the financial transactions for smooth functions of the hotel.
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REFERENCES
Books and journals
Al Jahwari, D.S., Sirakaya-Turk, E. and Altintas, V., 2016. Evaluating communication
competency of tour guides using a modified importance-performance analysis (MIPA).
International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management.
Ball, J. and et.al., 2019. Implementation, Impact and Costs of Policies for Safe Staffing in Acute
Trusts.
Bercovitch, J., 2019. Social conflicts and third parties: Strategies of conflict resolution.
Routledge.
Brien, A., Thomas, N.J. and Brown, E.A., 2017. How hotel employee job-identity impacts the
hotel industry: The uncomfortable truth. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism
Management. 31. pp.235-243.
Ford, R.C. and Sturman, M.C., 2018. Managing Hospitality Organizations: Achieving
Excellence in the Guest Experience. SAGE Publications.
Kadry, S., Bagdasaryan, A. and Kadhum, M., 2017, April. Simulation and analysis of staff
scheduling in hospitality management. In 2017 7th International Conference on
Modeling, Simulation, and Applied Optimization (ICMSAO)(pp. 1-6). IEEE.
Lee, M., Jeong, M. and Lee, J., 2017. Roles of negative emotions in customers’ perceived
helpfulness of hotel reviews on a user-generated review website. International Journal of
Contemporary Hospitality Management.
Modic, D. and Damij, N., 2018. Towards Intellectual Property Rights Management: Back-office
and Front-office Perspectives. Springer.
Nguyen, H.H.M., 2019. Optimizing the role of hotel front office staff in modern-day revenue
management.
Park, H. and et.al., 2019. Does hotel cleanliness correlate with surfaces guests
contact?. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management.
Priyono, A. and Yulita, A., 2017. Integrating Kano Model and Quality Function Deployment for
designing service in hospital front office. Intangible Capital. 13(5). pp.923-945.
Rothaermel, F.T., 2016. Strategic management: concepts (Vol. 2). McGraw-Hill Education.
Sennewald, C.A. and Baillie, C., 2020. Effective security management. Butterworth-Heinemann.
Simpao, K.J.S., 2018. Labour productivity measurement and control standards for hotel. Journal
of Service Science Research. 10(1). pp.25-76.
Small, A. and Wainwright, D., 2018. Privacy and security of electronic patient records–Tailoring
multimethodology to explore the socio-political problems associated with Role Based
Access Control systems. European Journal of Operational Research. 265(1). pp.344-360.
Wood, R.C. ed., 2017. Hotel Accommodation Management. Routledge.
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Online
Outsource vs In house security, Chuck Dobrosielski. 2019. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.hotelmanagement.net/security/size-scale-budget-decide-how-a-hotel-
handles-security-personnel>
Labour turnover cost. 2010. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.researchgate.net/publication/45192991_How_much_does_labour_turnover_
cost_A_case_study_of_Australian_four-_and_five-star_hotels>
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