Front office

reservations

Name / mostafa mohey Eldin mostafa mohgazy

[Link] karam Ghazi
The third band: hospitality
Subject / Front office reservations

1
Introduction:
Inquiry for a room is usually the first point of contact between a hotel a
guest This may be in the form of a query for the types of room, availability
of accommodation for certain duration and the best available rate for the
period. This is usually followed by the reservation of room, which is a
process of advance booking of room. Reservation is considered as the
starting point of what is referred as a guest cycle.

Reservation Stage:
This stage, as mentioned earlier, is the first point of contact between the
hotel and the guest. Usually guest himself or his representative approaches
the hotel for advance booking of accommodation. This stage typically
includes the following:
a. Query about the types of rooms in the hotel.
b. Availability check for the desired type of room for the given duration
c. Negotiation on the best possible rate for the period. Booking of the
room by the guest

PREPARING FOR GUEST SERVICES:

A guest’s interaction with the hotel is divided into the following four
successive stages:

a. Pre-arrival
b. Arrival
c. Occupancy
d. Departure

2
Pre-arrival:
This is when the client is planning to book an accommodation at a hotel
thus the process starts with finding about information related to the hotel
and its facilities. Therefore, they look forward to the information available
on the internet, websites, brochures media, magazines, tourist portals etc.
Then he enquiry is processed via a phone call.

front office management:

an email wherein the guest confirms the information with the hotel that has
been selected by the guest for his/ her stay. When the guest interaction
happens with the front desk employees the front office software records the
guest’s information such as name, age, contact numbers, probable duration
of stay for room reservation and so on.

Arrival:
This stage is when the front desk staff receives the guests in the hotel at
the hotel reception. The bell boys get the baggage from the porch to the
main lobby and the receptionist then checks the whether the guest has a
reservation or not. For guests with confirmed reservation the prefilled Guest
Registration Card is presented to the guest for signatures and to fill any
information that was not previously shared.

Occupancy:
The posting of various charges for services used by the guest, payments
made, room bill, etc. are updated in the hotel system from different outlets
takes place in occupancy stage. Any mails and messages received for the
guest when he/she is away or not in the room are processed and delivered
with confidentiality. The staff also ensures that the room keys are assigned
to the correct individual by asking for key card every time the need arises.
The services like booking a taxi, booking travel tickets, booking tickets for
special events, babysitting, local sightseeing, etc. on request of the guest
are also provided.

3
Departure:
As the name suggests the departure stage includes the preparation of final
bills, presentation of bills, receipt of payments and procession of payments
for settlement apart from creation of guest history records. The bills which
are not settled in full are processed with necessary documents collected
from the departing guest for transferring them to the accounts department
for follow up. The guest record then gets changed to the non – guest
record. The baggage is picked up and loaded into guest vehicle by the bell
desk porters. And if any facility like a drop is needed to the airport of
nearest transit point it is also provided.

Importance of Reservation Section:

Importance of Reservation for the Hotel:

a. Gives the first impression of the hotel to guests

b. Sells the main product of a hotel (accommodation)
c. Generates customers for other departments.
d. Provides important management information to other departments.

Types of Reservation:

Tentative Reservation:
t is a reservation request that a prospective guest makes on a tentative
basis for particular stay dates. The hotel holds the room for the guest till a
cut-off date, by which the guest should confirm the reservation. Upon
confirmation from the guest the hotel changes the tentative reservation to a
confirmed reservation, otherwise it cancels the tentative reservation, and
updates its records accordingly.

4
Waitlisted Reservation:
A reservation is waitlisted when the requested category of room is not
available for the requested dates

1. The waitlisted reservation is confirmed when the hotel receives a

cancellation request for a room of the same category.
2. This way the hotel ensures that its rooms will not remain vacant in
case of cancellations.
3. This situation usually occurs in high-occupancy periods such as long
weekends or festival/ fair time, or season time.

POST REGISTRATION ACTIVITIES:

After checking in the guest, the front desk personnel updates room status
report, prepares arrival notification slips for all concerned departments,
creates guest folio and fills C-form (for foreigners) to send to concerned
authorities. The post-registration activities which are carried out after the
guest has proceeded to his room are as follows

Check-in of the guest in the PMS:

computer system. This enables al other departments to know about the
check-in of a guest, his credit status and also to activate all guest services
for his benefit. In a manual system this objective is achieved by sending
arrival notification slips to different departments of the hotel. The
departments where arrival is notified are housekeeping, Laundry, Food and
Beverage service, Telephone operator, Cashier, Information and Bell desk.
(h) Opening of guest folio: The guest folio is opened by the front office
cashier

5
Front of the House Operations:
 Creation of guest database
 Harmonizing guest services
 Up-selling the services
 Preparation and management of guest accounts
 Ensuring guest satisfaction

Modes of Reservation:

Written Mode;
- When a reservation request reaches the hotel in writing, the mode is
classified as a written mode of reservation
The various written mode for reservation request are as under:
 Letter
 Fax
 Telex
 E-mail

Sources of Reservation
A hotel receives reservation requests from different sources like:
1. Direct reservation
2. Central reservation system (CRS)
3. Instant reservation system (IRS)
4. Inter-sell agencies
5. Global distribution system

6
Back of the House Operations:
 Verifying the guest records to ascertain the type of guest
(fresh/repeat) to ensure preferences are offered without being
requested
 Maintaining guest’s account with the accounting system.
 Processing of the guest’s bill after check out
 Assisting in follow up and collecting the balance amount of guest bills
by accounts department if any issue arises.
 Generating operational and financial reports

Direct Reservation :
When a hotel receives a reservation request directly from a guest without
any mediator, it is termed as direct reservation. An individual or group can
contact the hotel directly.

The CRS is of two types:

Affiliated system:
In affiliated reservation systems, all the participating hotel units belong to
the same chain or group, like Welcome net by Welcome group of Hotels,
Holidex by Holiday Inn Hotels, Image by Hyatt Hotels, and ITT by Sheraton
Hotel
Non-affiliated system:
Non-affiliated system is a subscription-based system, designed to connect
independent or non chain properties, like the Leading Hotels of the World
(LHW), Small Luxury Hotels of the World (SLH). This enables non-chain
properties to enjoy the benefits of CRS.

Instant Reservation System:

It is generally an independent division of the chain of hotels and situated in
one of its units. While the reservation department of that unit of the chain
takes reservation for that unit only, IRS takes booking for all the units of the
chain, except that particular unit where IR office is located

7
Systems of Reservation:

Manual System
In a manual system, all the reservation records are maintained manually.
This is an old system is reservation is suitable for a small property, where
the number of rooms is less and the volume of reservation requests is also
low
The hotel may use one of the following systems of manual reservation
 Diary System of Reservation
 Whitney system of reservation

Diary system of reservation

As the name suggests, in this system a daily diary is kept, in which the
reservation agent lists all arrivals due on a particular day.

 t is usually kept on a loose-leaf basis

 The top page represents arrivals on the current date; this is removed
and sent to the front desk for receiving the guests.
 The hotel booking diary may be hard bound also
 The diary system of reservation is only suitable for very small
properties.
 The tools used in diary system of reservation are as under.

8
Room Availability Records used in Manual System

Bedroom Journal
It is similar to the reservation diary. It is tiled with date wise sequence

 Each page of journal contains the occupancy details for that date
name of the guest, the room number, and the type of room

Housekeeping Department
Housekeeping and the front office communicate with each other about
housekeeping room status, the report on the availability of the rooms for
immediate guest occupancy, availability of rooms, cleanliness and hygiene
of front office areas, maintenance of furniture and fixtures. It is important to
communicate both ways as this leads to resolution of any issues related to
room availability at the earliest and for taking care of guest issues if any in
context of room and amenities provided

Housekeeping room status can be described in the following common

terms:

9
VR: Vacant & Ready (Clean/ Available) - room is ready to be occupied.
O: Occupied - guest or guests are already staying in the room.
SO; Stay over - guest shall not be checking out of a room on the current
day.

Room Service:
The front office shares the information about placement of fruit baskets,
cookies, mini bar supplies, wines etc., with room service through the
amenities voucher. The supervisors in the food and beverage department
depend on the potential house count report prepared by the front office
manager to schedule employees and predict sales.

Unit Finance Controller:

The daily summary of financial transactions through a well - prepared night
audit report is shared with the UFC. This information is important to the
departments to understand where they stand against the budget targets.

Glossary:
Reservation Section: A section of front involved in taking room
reservation.
Reception Section:
A section of front involved in receiving guest, handling guest queries.
Information Section:
A section of front involved in providing information to guest.
Cash & bills Section:
A section of front involved in marinating guest accounts and settlement of
guest account.
Travel desk:
A section in front involved in providing travel assistance to guest.

Reservation Management:
The different reservation channels like website, internet, HRS, GDS etc.
are integrated to offer faster and user-friendly services. The room
inventory, room status, calendar and booking engine work side by side
thus.

10
Automatic System:
Automated reservation systems are computerized reservation systems that
are used to store and retrieve room status information and conduct
transactions. The information stored in the automatic system is the same
as in a manual system. However, the processing of reservation request
does not require manual study of ALC, Density control chart etc. The
reservation assistant can check the availability of rooms by clicking on a
link on the computer.

Room status board/ Perpetual Year Planner/ Stop &

Go Board:
As the name suggests, this chart

 Shows the rooms booking position for 1 year on continuous basis.

 Sold Out- means no rooms are available for booking for the
requested period.
 On Request – means rooms can be blocked subjected to
cancellation and the guest is given the status of waitlist.
 V/C – vacant clean, V/D – vacant dirty

11
MAKING ROOM RESERVATION

12
Processing Reservation request
Every hotel has its own standard operating procedure (SOP) to deal with a
reservation request from a guest. The standard procedure of responding to
a guest’s reservation request is:

 Receiving reservation inquiries

 Determining room availability
 Accepting or denying request for reservation

. Receiving reservation inquiries

The request for a room reservation may reach a hotel from any one of the
various modes. While receiving a reservation request, the reservation
agent should ask for that particular information which will help in processing
request faster. The following information will help to determine the
availability of the room requested by the guest:
 Date and time of arrival.
 Date and time of departure.
 Number and type of rooms required.
 Number of persons in the party.

Determining room availability

Using the information gathered at the time of receiving the reservation
request, the reservation agent will ascertain whether the requested type of
room is available in the desired number for the required duration.

Accepting or denying request for reservation.

- Once the reservation agent has established the availability of the room for
the guest, she will either accept or deny the reservation request and
conclude the processing of reservation request.
If the rooms are available as per the guest’s requirements, the reservation
requested is accepted. The following details are gathered from the guest
while accepting the reservation.

13
Amending Reservation
When guests with confirmed reservations change their travel plans, they
convey the same to the hotel. This change–in the type of reservation
(guaranteed or non-guaranteed), date of arrival, duration of stay, type of
room, etc.–is termed as amendment.
 In case of amendments, the hotel has to check the availability of
rooms again as per the fresh details given by the guest.
 The changes are recorded in a specialized form known as the
reservation cancellation/amendment form.
 The hotel might charge an additional fee for making changes to the
existing booking.

Cancellation of Reservation
The cancellation of a reservation occurs when a guest with a confirmed
reservation informs the hotel about her intention to cancel the reservation.

 As cancellation might lead to the loss of room revenue, hotels

discourage cancellations by imposing retention charges.
 In care of guaranteed reservation, if the cancellation is not made
before stipulated date and time, the hotel any charge retention fee ,
which may be equal to the rent of one night or more.

Reservation Reports
The reservation department compiles many reports for the use of all
departments. Some of the most commonly used reservation reports include
the following:

1. Reservation transaction report - The reservation transaction report

is the summary of the daily activities of the reservation department.

The daily activities are as follows:

 Creation of reservation records
 Amendment request
 Cancellation of reservation request.

14
Reservation Manager
In the context of hotel, the term reservation is used for booking a particular
accommodation in the hotel by a guest for a period of time. Reservation
section does not directly deal with the guests.
Some important tasks a reservation manager is responsible for are:
 Having knowledge about the reservation systems
 Providing and updating information on tours, prices, and itineraries.

Central Reservation System

It is a computerized reservation system that reduces paperwork and can
handle large amount of reservation data effortlessly.
In this system, since the guest data and reservation data are stored on the
storage disks of the computers, it can be accessed at wish. It is stored in
the form of a database of collection of records which can enable searching,
adding, removing, or updating any guest related data.

This is how a CRS typically works

Conclusion
so, we can see that there are various sources of hotel reservation.
Further, its reservation is through both online and offline sources.
Online sources are property direct, online travel agencies, corporate
houses, central reservation system and many more.
15
Names of references/
[Link]
3_Reservations-[Link]
[Link]
about_front_desk.htm
[Link]

16