Hotel Management

What is Hotel Management?

Hotel Management is well as the name says the management of a hotel. This involves every aspect of running a hotel such as administrative work, bookings, marketing, customer relations, catering services, renting of venues, housekeeping, and many more. The success or failure of a hotel is heavily reliant on its management. The “human element” is a key factor in hotel management; a well-designed, magnificent building alone is not enough to create a fulfilling guest experience.

Bookings and Reservations

A hotel needs bookings to generate revenue. That statement seems obvious but some hotels underestimate the need to make booking as easy as possible for potential customers. In the old days, booking a hotel required you to get their phone number then physically call them to place a reservation. This process was normal a few years back but is now considered obsolete and will put off customers who are used to doing everything with a few taps of their smartphone.

Most modern hotels use a booking engine to receive bookings and a front office management system to manage their bookings and reservations effectively. Installing a booking engine on your website is also a key method to drive direct bookings. In addition to allowing guests to book directly with you, it also significantly reduces the likelihood of overbooking cases that were rampant with traditional booking methods.

The use of OTAs or Online Travel Agencies such as Booking.com, Agoda.com, or Hotels.com is another popular method of increasing bookings. In the beginning, it was hard to sync all the bookings received from multiple OTAs. As the meme goes, modern problems require modern solutions, channel managers were introduced to solve this issue. With the rise of channel managers in the hotel industry, having property management systems with integration to channel managers became a competitive advantage.

Read also: Importance of Property Management System (PMS) and functions of a hotel property management system

Cancellations

Cancellations are sometimes inevitable, people might miss their flight, have a conflict in scheduling, or maybe experiencing a lockdown. Whatever the reason, it is important to establish a cancellation policy and display it explicitly during the booking process to avoid any misunderstandings or conflicts.

While it is important to be strict in the enforcement of the cancellation policy, it is also important to empathize with guests that had to cancel due to unforeseen circumstances thus we encourage you to investigate each case while placing yourself in the shoes of your customers. Due to the current pandemic, cancellations are especially rampant because of state-wide lockdowns, showing empathy in such cases and providing solutions such as giving refunds or vouchers to re-book at a different date will definitely be appreciated by your guest and leave a good impression.

Hotel Operations

A hotel should be able to work in an organized systematic manner for maximum productivity and efficiency. In order to achieve this, hotels divide their work and assign dedicated teams or individuals to specific tasks. While the types of work and job positions may vary from each hotel they generally share a few common positions.

Read also: The Importance of Soft Skills for Hospitality Management Staff

General Manager

A general manager refers to the individual in charge of the overall operations in a hotel. This could include management of staff, security, housekeeping, finance, customer service, and marketing. Larger hotels tend to split the duties to specific job positions. In larger hotels, general managers are usually supported by subordinate managers responsible for a specific department thus reducing the amount of micromanagement needed. However, General managers for smaller hotels are usually directly involved in almost all aspects of the hotel's daily operation.

In this day and age, problems and issues are often solved using a technological solution, the management of properties is no different. There are now various types of hotel front office systems and cloud-based hotel front office systems in the market that caters to this need.

If you have not yet adopted the technology and are still looking for the best one, here we have compiled some tips on how to choose a PMS that fits your hotel.

Read also: 4 ways hotel management system can help budget hotels

Front Desk

The staff at the front desk is responsible to facilitate the check-in and check-out process of guests, they also will answer any questions that the guest may have. Special requests from guests such as morning calls, room service, or additional pillows are also usually made to the front desk staff, who will then fulfill the request or contact the relevant staff.

While some hotels have concierge services, front desk staff are still often the first point of contact between the hotel and guests. The attitude and level of hospitality shown at this stage often has a significant impact on the overall experience of guests and could determine if they will be a hater, a loyal customer, or maybe even a brand ambassador.

In recent years automation of tasks such as the allocation of rooms and the placing of bookings has made life a little easier for front desk staff. The recent trend of going contactless has also prompted some hotels to employ the use of self check-in kiosks.

Housekeeping

The job of cleaning and maintenance is often handled by a housekeeping team. Their task involves and is not limited to the cleaning of the hotel environment, cleaning of rooms, replacing toiletries, changing of bed sheets, reporting misplaced items to be lost and found, and repair work.

Many hotels train their housekeeping staff to follow a fixed cleaning routine to ensure that the cleaning is consistent and thorough. At the time of writing, sanitization of public spaces is a crucial task in the effort to stop the spread of Covid-19 which also inspires confidence in guests, giving them a sense of security.

Marketing and Sales

In addition to running the hotel, getting customers in the first place is also a challenge faced by hoteliers. Whether you are trying to attract new customers or bring back old customers, it all falls under marketing. There are many different marketing strategies that can be used by hotels to attract guests such as through ads, social media, content marketing, promotion campaigns, and loyalty programs.

In addition to promoting the hotel, understanding your customers is also important. By knowing who your target audience is you can then market to them accordingly. By collecting reviews and feedback from customers you can find out your strengths and weaknesses then take steps to improve. Only by constantly improving and keeping up to standards will your brand reputation improve.

Read all about hotel marketing and find related articles here.

Security

Security is an essential part of hotels for both customers and staff. Hotels should be a safe haven for weary travelers where they can stash their luggage, enjoy their holiday with peace of mind and return to rest and recuperate.

Every hotel that values security and privacy should have a reliable door lock system. There are many different kinds of locks available for hotels. The cost to install and implement some of these door lock solutions is quite high but peace of mind is priceless, so invest in a solution that you believe is the absolute best for you.

In addition to this, the use of CCTV is also quite common in this day and age even for small hotels. Having surveillance installed should cause people to think twice before conducting any “funny business” on your premises. Larger hotels may consider hiring guards or a dedicated security team. Security is usually deployed in places such as the front entrance, parking lots, and surveillance rooms.

Read also: VingCard Hotel Door Lock System

Conclusion

The hotel industry is constantly growing and changing at a rapid rate, it is affected by various factors such as the seasons, locations, services as well as current issues but good hotel management will definitely play a part in ensuring the longevity and prosperity of a hotel. We hope the articles found here will help you understand a little more about hotel management.

Further Reading:

You're reading a blog compiled by Softinn. We're a hotel-technology company with the mission to make hotelier work easier. Do subscribe if you enjoy reading our blog or you may interact with us on our Facebook Page.

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