Hotel Operations in Holiday Inn Guildford - Case Study Example

Module Room Division Management International Hospitality Management Hoi Yu Lee Assignment Hotel Operations in Holiday Inn Guildford Word count: 1,771 Date: 13/04/2015 Declaration of originality: I declared that this work is my own original work Table of Contents Table of Contents 1 Structure and Scope of Rooms Division in Hotel Operations 2 The Customer Journey 3 Housekeeping Operations 3 Front Office Operations 5 Property Management System 7 Employment Issues in Rooms Division 8 Internal and External Communications 9 Brands Standards and Standard Operating Procedures 10 Recommendations for General Improvements 10 Experiences 11 Structure and Scope of Rooms Division in Hotel Operations Holiday Inn Guildford is an ideal hotel for business and leisure. It is a purpose built hotel that has the benefit of modern planning expertise. The rooms are functional and appropriately proportioned. The guests can make use of the exceptional leisure club that has a gym, sauna, Jacuzzi, steam room, indoor pool, and beauty spa provided. It is readily available with a bus stop fairly close to the hotel grounds. The paper will examine the room division management operations of the hotel. The Room Divisions consists of three major areas. These are the housekeeping, front office, and uniformed services. The front office is in charge of welcoming guests, registering them, assigning guest rooms and checks them out in addition to providing answers to questions about the hotel and the community (Jansen &Pennekamp 90). The largest department is the housekeeping which takes care of cleanliness. The Customer Journey Duties of the client journey department involve making guests happy, anticipating, meeting and fulfilling guest needs and queries. In addition, one has to assist guests check in and out of the hotel, ensure that the internet is operating optimally and answer the telephone. The customer journey team has to possess the ability to describe their products, services, and other information about the hotel as requested by a guest. Staffs have to ensure that the best quality services are provided to the customer (Staudt 61). Housekeeping Operations Housekeeping involves management of duties and chores required in the daily running of the hotel. The duties include room cleaning, room checking, hotel maintenance, and laundry. These tasks are performed by room attendants and the housekeeping managers. Room attendants have to follow the “I CLEAN” process in order to make sure that they do every task and did not miss anything. After the rooms are cleaned, the housekeeping manager will be in charge of checking the rooms to see if they are cleaned well and to ensure that no dusts or rubbish are left inside the room. They are also required to check whether all electrical appliances in the room are working well. The primary roles of the head of the housekeeping department are to ensure supervision and well-coordinated guestroom bed room floors and the housekeeping office or linens rooms. He has to provide with health and safety regulations and maintain high standards while retaining a close working relationship with the General Manager. It is to make sure that the housekeeping department meets its daily requirement of high quality of the Holiday Inn Guildford brand. Other roles involve maintaining and monitoring staff levels, sourcing and procuring new and functional procedures, audit staff and coordinate with external agencies and suppliers among other duties (Staudt 48). In order to evaluate the hotel’s performance, the hotel has created the “Heartbeat” system. This is a system for collecting guests’ opinions by sending a survey to those who have had a stay in our hotel through email. This will then help to create a leverage report to improve customer satisfaction. Front Office Operations The major function of the front office at Holiday Inn Guildford is to handle guests’ queries. As a department, the front office is equipped with highly skilled and experienced customer attendants who do their best to respond to all the clients’ queries about the reservation of rooms, checking in and out, internet accessibility issues and so on. The front office is an important department because it links to almost all other department and it is always the place where guests will go to seek help or to complain about something they are not satisfied about. The computers in the front office also link to the housekeeping department which makes the availability of rooms visible on the screen. The front office is able to see whether a certain room is cleaned and checked, or is it still dirty and waiting for clean. As guests may arrive earlier sometimes and want to check in earlier, so it is important that the Front Office gets access to the information of rooms in order to deal with the customers and know what to do. Besides dealing with customers, the front office also have to do filing works, such as to sort out the registration cards guests and to staple it with other extra expenses. Holiday Inn Guildford introduces IHG Rewards to customers which allow them to collect guest touch points. They earn more points when they come back every time and spend on the hotel. The IHG Rewards is classified into three groups, which are Club members, Gold members and Platinum members. The type of member will depend on how many points the guest gain. If a room change is necessary due to certain circumstances, for example all standard rooms are booked, and then the front office will consider upgrading the room type of premium members like Gold or Platinum members instead of the Club members. Reservation Systems Reservation of rooms is done online on the hotel’s website with a choice of 168 bedrooms and 15 meeting rooms. On the website, the prospective guest indicates the check in date and the check out time. One may also reserve a table at the restaurant or other amenities available at the hotel just by making a call to the hotel. The reservation process is handled at the front office. The guest’s reservation details are confirmed once they arrive at the hotel. Property Management System Property management system which is also known as PMS is used for the management of hospitality accommodation in business terms. It is a computerized system which enables management of resources, legalities, equipment and their maintenance, and personnel using single software (Ofallon& Rutherford 27). Holiday Inn Guildford’s Property Management System is easy to understand and operate board screen. It provides the front office clerk instant access to the needed information for the required aspect of a guest’s stay. The PMS application covers coordination of front office operational functions, sales or planning. PMS software automates hotel functions like online reservations, guest details, materials management, payroll, accounts receivable, maintenance management among other amenities (OConnor 126). Employment Issues in Rooms Division Employment issues cover matters such as wage, hours, and work permit for foreigners and minors. Employees need comfortable working hours and wages to match their productivity. People from different countries may visit the hotel. A guest from a different country is likely to find a connection with a foreign employee if they are from the same nation. Employee issues need to be addressed adequately to maximize employee productivity. Internal and External Communications Internal and external communication is one the most fundamental aspects of positive organizational operations. Internal communication happens between employees, whereas external communication is between the hotel and the agencies outside the hotel. Organizations will not be able to operate well without any contact and communication. Internal and external communication aligns the operations of the hotel owing to the manner in which guests and employees connect. Productivity and Efficiency in Room Divisions There are various factors that affect the productivity and efficiency of the hospitality industry. Improvements in productivity are caused by innovation with significant differences due to geographic locations. Several factors determine the efficiency in hotels. First, it is the concentration of market share to attain efficiency gains. Secondly, a high level of organizational autonomy impacts positively on efficiency (Fried, Lovell & Schmidt 47). Brands Standards and Standard Operating Procedures Holiday Inn Guildford uses standards to deliver reliability, operational cost, and low cost. At the same time, they use these standards as the motive for creating distinctive solutions for every customer based on a profound understanding of their needs. It results to a potent communication fulfilling two customer value propositions at the same time. Astute application of standards allows achievement of flexibility and efficiency to deliver unique solutions to each guest. Recommendations for General Improvements During the housekeeping day, I have learnt the procedures and ways to clean a room, which is based on the “I CLEAN” process provided by the housekeeping department. I found out that the hotel actually uses the used pillowcases to clean tables, toilets, bathtubs and other dirty facilities inside the room, which I think is quite unpleasant and unhygienic. If I am a customer of the hotel, I would not want to stay in this hotel again after knowing that they use pillowcases to clean the facilities. As a result, I would recommend Holiday Inn Guildford to use cleaning towels instead to clean those facilities, and especially the toilets. Besides, I noticed that there are no lifts inside the hotel which makes it very inconvenient for guests, as they have to carry their luggage up and down. The housekeeping manager also told me that they often receive complaints about not having any lifts in the hotel which is definitely a problem to guests. As a recommendation, I would suggest the hotel to construct fully functional and well-equipped lifts to be used by guests while moving along different levels. Experiences When I went to Holiday Inn Guildford, I was mainly interested in gaining experience in the International Hospitality Management. I found out that the hotel has two main departments: the front office and the room division. Each of these has important roles to play in the hotel. to achieve their objectives, they have been equipped with a team of highly trained professionals who have a wealth of knowledge on hospitality. The major lessons I learnt about the front office is that it is composed of professionals including room attendants who work under the supervision of the housekeeping manager. However, to promote accountability and proper coordination of all the activities, the housekeeping manager has to be answerable to the general manager. This makes it much easier for the front office to perform daily chores; room checking in and out; laundry; room cleaning; room booking; and maintenance. From the room division, I found out that the hotel employs highly skilled customer care attendants whose primary responsibilities involves the handling of guest complaints, crisis management, and team management (Baker, Bradley &Huyton 27). Other responsibilities include selection and training of employees, induction to the department daily, weekly or monthly departmental meetings, arranging, delegating and directing work. The other important lesson learnt from the hotel is that there needs to be a team work in any hospitality facility. Although they have specified roles to perform, the members of these departments need to collaborate with one another. Once their activities are properly coordinated, they can not find it challenging to discharge their duties and help the hotel to accomplish its goals (Fried, Lovell & Schmidt 47). My experience at Holiday Inn Guildford has taught me that one should be able to speak with confidence to guests, management, and the housekeeping body. I should also have competent in English and possess good communication skills. I got the chance to gain relevant experience in this high quality and high volume hospitality environment. 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