This is a solution of Icon College Room Division Operations Management Assignment which discusses in depth about Hospitality Industry and its management.

Introduction:

The main concern of the players in the Hospitality Management Industry is the satisfaction of their customers. They try to provide different services for the same. For this purpose, they have a lot of functions to take care of. Among them is Rooms Division Management (RDM). The RDM functionality tries to take care of environment of the rooms which are being provided to the client so that they can enjoy their stay (Kimes, 1989). The assignment will discuss abut the Rooms Division Management at a 4 star hotel in the city of Oxford. The Old Bank Hotel, located in Oxford is one of the oldest hotels in London. This hotel was established close to one hundred thirty five years ago in the university city of London.

It’s a huge hotel spread in an area of two square miles. It has 42 rooms and 2 restaurants. The interiors of the rooms are decorated with paintings showing the culture of England. The amenities have been constantly upgraded from time to time to make it seem like a modern day hotel facility. It has state of the art infrastructure with all modern amenities. The staff uniforms and trainings are held regularly to ensure the best service to customers.

Task 1

1.1 Types of accommodation and front office services need to be offered and analyse the roles and responsibilities of the accommodation and reception service staff.

There are two important segments present in the Hospitality Industry: Reception and Accommodation.

Engineering and Housekeeping are the two important functions of the Accommodation. The purpose of accommodation segment in the industry is to provide the customers with an environment where they can stay and relax. This would be the arrangement where they can get relieved from their stress. Housekeeping has following roles:

• To monitor the accommodation arrangements.
• To keep check of the inventories for kitchen and other areas.
• To monitor the health and safety scenarios
• To maintain a seamless communication in between departments
• To make sure proper hygiene is maintained within the premises.

Engineering department has the following functions to take care of:

• To check for the repairing and maintaining of each and every equipment present within the hotel.
• To take care of the proper maintenance of daily usage tools like A.C, water supply, electricity supply etc. within the hotel.

Reception can be termed as the second most important area within the hotel. The major segments within the reception includes Night Auditors, Cashier, Concierge, Mailing department, Bell Service and Front Office. Clerks resides in the front office. Front Office people have following roles:

• Maintain the satisfaction level of the customers
• Make detailed analysis of the target market and forecast the suppl and demand scenarios.
• Ensuring the meeting of the targets.
• Fulfill the needs of the customers and make them feel satisfied.

Similarly, day clerks tries to:

• Maintain the customer database and accounts on timely manner
• Ensuring that all the rooms are occupied for most of the time
• Monitor the occupancy status at different periods
• Arrange value added services to the customers
• Arrange for boarding to and from the hotel for the customers
• To monitor the schedules of working staff to make sure everything is going as planned.

The facilities and people involved in the bell services include the bellmen, doormen etc. Also, the services like lobby managers, clericals, different operators within the hotel are also the part of this team. These people help in monitoring and maintaining the extra services which have to be done in the hotel to maintain the proper functioning of the related services. Their responsibilities in the hotel includes:

• The mailing information of customers is handled by the clerks
• The luggage services and escorting services is provided by the bellmen
• The guests are greeted by the Doormen at the tie of their arrival at the hotel

Concierge can be referred as an extension of the front desk services. It provide major additional support to the arriving and staying customers. Their main roles are as follows:

• To ensure ticket booking are done as requested
• To ensure arrangements for tourism and sightseeing are taken care of.
• To guide the customers from every point possible (Morrison, 1996)
• To help the clients related to the mailing services.

Last but not the least, the Night Auditors and Cashiers have the following functions to take care of:

• To maintain daily records and keeping the book of accounts on timely basis
• To take care of the costs incurred.
• To take care of the customers balances.

1.2 Evaluation of the type of services provided by the rooms division department in a range of accommodation facilities and the legal and statutory requirements that apply to rooms division operations in the UK

The main responsibilities of the accommodation department as hotels, camps, university campuses etc. are related to the sales of the room at the facility. This department is responsible for ensuring that the customers arriving at the facility can be facilitated and they get their needs addressed to the maximum possible extent. The following functionalities are being provided by the RDM within the hospitality industry segment by the players present within the industry:

• The primary service being provided is the greeting of the clients on their arrival by the doormen.
• After the rooms are finalized, the bellmen helps the customers to get to their room and take care of the luggage transfer to the room as well.
• Front desk people help the customers in checking in related formalities and maintaining of their accounts.
• The concierge helps the customers in planning their stay including major places to visit.
• They also help in the arrangement of other services like pool sessions plus spa sessions etc.
• The customers are also helped with entertainment related services like indoor games facilities, music and movies related functionalities etc.
• Providing call services to the clients and also helping them with mailing services.
• Arrangements for professional conferences as well as making lunch related arrangements for corporate is also provided.
• Other amenities like foods and beverages etc. are also taken care of.

The RDM monitors the scenarios where every time the rules and regulations regarding the room division must be incorporated within the hotel (Worsfold, 1989). The stay of the guests have to be under the different rules which have been framed when the hotel was established. They help in maintaining the security and appropriate decorum within the hotel. The satisfaction of the customers are also taken care of with the help of these rules. The main criteria related to the RDM operations and monitoring in the Hospitality Industry includes the following:

• The first and foremost responsibility of the RDM within the hotel is the safety of the guests present within the hotel. The safety and protection is from all perspectives and should be taken seriously by the hotels RDM department.
• The second important aspect where the hotel managers should be stricter is the maintenance of the privacy of the customers who reside in their hotel. The personal information of the people or the customers and their relatives should be kept classified without any leaks to the other unauthorized personnel. The front office executives should take care of the situation where the room key is lost and some third person other than guest tries to retrieve the keys. These situations should be handled with strict rules.
• The security of the guests of the hotel should be taken care of. The doors and windows should be safely locked whenever it is required. The hotel should be fully rigged with CCTV cameras so that no mis-happening can happen within te premises.
• The luggage and other properties of clients have to be handled by the customers themselves. A lot of hotels have now started to have a safety box facility and items deposited there only are under the liability of the hotels.
• The rooms within the hotel should be kept in hygienic environment by maintaining proper cleanliness within the hotel (Jones, 1993).

Task 2

2.1 Role and importance of the front of house area in the effective management of a hospitality business and the key aspects of planning and management of the front of house area for the new hospitality operations

The importance of Front Office are of the hotel is as mentioned below:

• The Design and Layout are the first impression for any hotel on the customer. It is considered to be the face of the Hotel and hence, a well-planned, clean and attractive layout can attract a large number of customers and should be developed accordingly.
• For any hotel the quality and the service is most important and gives a glimpse about the overall quality and cultural status for it and hence an efficient front end service gives a positive picture to its customer about its service and quality.
• Customer satisfaction is again, one important aspect and is majorly dependent on the services like concierge services, etc. Additional gears such as cab booking, travel bookings, sightseeing planning and information & query handling add to overall enhancement of customer service.

The key aspects of planning and management of the front house area are:

• Property Management Systems: Multiple functions of a hotel like, managing human resources, tour operations, finance and infrastructure (admin) can be managed online with the support of various IT platforms. Efficient management leads to impactful and quality service.
• Reservation and Room management: Hotel room bookings and cancellations can also be managed by various IT platforms, available these days.
• Point of Sale Management: Point of Sale refers to the front end reservation and admin management, this leads to a very critical service being delivered and plays a very impactful role on customer retention, can be managed by software platforms(Tsaur, 2001).
• Guest account management: A very important part of the reservations management extension is the management of the Guest accounts for already checked in guests. All the entries and data have to be filled by the front desk managers and executives.
• Yield Management: Yield management is the mathematics of measuring and forecasting the demand and supply data. It is based on the economies of scale model and has a very huge impact on any kind of hotel profitability.
• Safety and security: Security of the infrastructure and the guests is the toughest challenge for any housekeeping or admin management.
• Responsibility Planning: Allocating jobs, shifts, duties and responsibilities among the various hotel staff at the front end, including at front desk, bell service, concierge, information and enquiry, should be planned and disbursed efficiently so as to avoid any confusion.
• Communications or PBX: Private Branch Exchange and Emails are some of the most efficient tools at the front desk for communications.
• Data Mining: Keeping customer and guest information in ordered data stacks and updating it so as to retrieve crucial information at later stages is very crucial (Atherton, 1998).

2.2 Key operational issues that would affect the effective management and business performance of the front office area for the new hospitality operations

The operational issues related to the front office area can be explained as:

• Overbooking: Booking more rooms and reservations, than what actually a hotel can accommodate can lead to serious customer dissatisfaction and bring negative word of mouth publicity to any hotel. It can be avoided with efficient demand and supply management tools.
• Labour Shortage: Hotel industry is a seasonal industry with cyclicity in almost every aspect of its working including labour availability and at peak seasons can face acute shortages, which in turn lead to hampered work environment and hence brings bad name to the hotel brand.
• Power cuts: Disrupted power or water supplies are some of the un-manageable issues at times and can seriously disrupt the functionality of a hotel and can lead to bad name.
• Cost Containment: The biggest problem of any player in the hotel and travel & tourism industry is of containing the overhead costs. Keeping an eye on the ever increasing costs with little effect on overall customer satisfaction is one thing which every player strives for.

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Task 3

3.1 Role and importance of design and development of property interiors to the effective management of the hospitality operations

Apart from the services rendered by the hotel, the interior designing and the maintenance of the interiors of the hotel go a long way in ensuring that the customer chooses to stay in the hotel. The interiors of the hotel should be subtle and also complement the architecture of the hotel (Tas, 1988). One cannot expect that the hotel’s architecture is modern and has modern day designs and the furnishings of the room and the layout to resemble those of the pre historic times.

• The Hotel management staffs has to keep many things in mind and record, like maintain cleanliness all across the hotel, including, lobby and rooms, keeping a perfect infrastructure ready and up & running, like air-conditioning etc.
• Customer satisfaction and repeat customer is one thing, which every hotel asks for and can be easily garnered with excellent overall accommodation services and quality provided by the hotel staff and management.

3.2 Key aspects of planning and management of the accommodation service function and analysis of the operational issues affecting the effective management of the accommodation service function for the new property

The key aspects of planning and management for the Accommodation service include:

• Building regulations: Keeping the building designs and accommodation services well in regulation helps in winning an overall customer satisfaction and ensures repeat customers.
• Customer regulations: Customer handling procedures and standard operating protocols should be planned and in place well in advance, so as to meet all kinds of grievances.
• Data Development: A comprehensive approach of developing all kinds of qualitative and quantitative databases of the customer records should be in place so as to win the customer hearts.
• Room Service: Room facilities operations management and design planning should be put in place well in advance and in a comprehensive manner so as to ensure, maximum space utilization and optimization of location of various amenities in it.
• Use of technology: Latest technology and amenities (benefits) like Email, Telephone, FAX and printers should be planned so as to harness maximum customer satisfaction (Morrison, 1996).

The operational issues related to accommodation can be explained as follows:

• Physical conditions: Hotel success depending on the planning of resources, like physical conditions, such property value and technology, is huge.
• Quality & Experience of staff: Overall quality, quantity and experience of the hotel staff leads to a hugely successful hotel, based on its customer satisfaction.
• Marketing & Sales: Marketing and Sales, as in any other field plays a very important role in increasing the general revenues of the hotel via promotions and branding and brings in more profits.
• Growth in the market: The competitive activities and the overall positioning in the market leads to any hotel’s growth. Keeping up the pace of this growth depends on many fold iterations. (read more about Working in Partnership assignment)

Task 4

4.1 Revenue/yield management activities in order to maximise occupancy and rooms revenue and the sales techniques that rooms division staff can use to promote and maximise revenue

The total money generated from the sales of the total rooms available in any hotel in a specified time period is known as Total Revenue. The table above given depicts the Total Revenue generated for this hotel with almost 215 rooms, available.

The calculation for the revenue may be done as follows:

Room Rent of type A * Number of rooms of type A + Room Rent of type B * Number of rooms of type B + Room Rent of type C * Number of rooms of type C

A comprehensive and detailed forecasting technique of total rooms availability and supply – demand optimization so as to maximize the profits is known as Yield Management (Tsaur, 2001). The different sales and pricing techniques used to maximize the revenue have been given below:

• Price Bundling: When different products are clubbed and are offered in a bunch at the price of any one of them, then it is known as Price Bundling. Example two to three products are sold together at a lower price as compared to the price that would be charged if three products were bought separately. In hotels, this can be used by clubbing the buffet meals and recreational facilities with the room nights the person has booked.
• Individual based variable pricing: When judging upon the capacity of every individual visiting the hotel, the pricings are made and hence charged accordingly, so as to maximize revenues, it is known as Individual based Variable Pricing.
• Promotional Markdowns: Seasonal discounts are levied with an enhanced pricings in every festivity, so as marking promotional strategies for any hotel, which in turn leads to increased room bookings.
• Suggestive Selling: A well defined Customer Relationship Management in any hotel can lead to selling of products or offerings to its customers, based on their requirements and can include – up-selling and cross-selling. It requires a huge effort on relationship building by the salesman with the customers.

4.2 Importance and use of forecasting and statistical data within the rooms division and the success of accommodation sales

The Inn Road Software Package data is as below: -

Forecasting and statistical data may be used in multiple ways to divide the rooms. The same has been explained below:

• Statistics applied to calculate occupancy ratios, is described
• Demand forecasting techniques used to predict demand and so as to delegate rooms to customers.
• Trends and time of the year when the different types of room are occupied can also be analyzed (Sigala, 2005).
• Total revenue generated per room type is also calculated and then similar types of rooms are constructed.

The key performance indicators for measuring the success of accommodation sales are:  -

• Percentage of Occupancy: When Total rooms occupied are divided by the Total rooms available, we get the percentage of room occupancy at any time.

For Old Bank Hotel the Percentage Occupancy = 180 /215 = 0.84.

• Average Daily Room Rate: If the room rent is recovering the cost, i.e. Return on Investments is coming or not, with also, the rents are above average or median is generally calculated by this indicator.

            Average Daily Room Rate = Total Rooms Revenue / Total Rooms Sold

• Double Occupancy Percentage: It is calculated by dividing the difference of Total number of guests and number of rooms occupied by number of double occupied rooms (Atherton, 1998).

For Old Bank Hotel, Double Occupancy Percentage = 260 – 180 / 140 = 0.5714.

Conclusion

Rooms division and hospitality management are some of the very important fields in hospitality industry. To evaluate the performance of the hotel appropriate yield management strategies have to be implemented. The Old bank Hotel in oxford is one of the oldest 4 star hotel in the city of Oxford. The assignment talks about the room division and hospitality management at the Old Bank hotel. The various aspects related to hotel management and the legislative and regulatory requirements w.r.t. rooms division have been discussed. The numerous roles and responsibilities for selection of accommodation and reception staff have also been described. This presentation also explains the services offered by room division, especially the facility and front office departments. Planning and Management of the front end area and accommodation service have also been explained. This assignment also covers the operational issues affecting any running business and management performance of the front house area and accommodation service (Baum, 1990). The revenue and yield management strategies have been evaluated for the hotel and  shows that the hotel is quite famous with the people of Oxford and is one of the must visit places for the people when they arrive at Oxford. Also the staff and employees of the hotel are regularly trained in order to ensure the best of the services to its customers.

References

• Worsfold, P. 1989. Leadership and managerial effectiveness in the hospitality industry. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 8(2), 145-155.
• Jones, P., & Pizam, A. 1993. The international hospitality industry: organizational and operational issues. Pitman Publishing Limited.
• Donaghy, K., McMahon, U., & McDowell, D. 1995. Yield management: an overview. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 14(2), 139-150.
• Morrison, A. M. 1996. Hospitality and travel marketing (No. Ed. 2). Delmar Publishers.
• Atherton, T. C., & Atherton, T. A. 1998. Tourism, travel and hospitality law. LBC Information Services.

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