The Face of the hospitality industry is the front office department. It acts as a connecting link between the guest and the company. The staff welcomes the guests and develops the hotel’s first impression.
Actually, the front office department is working before, during, and after the guest’s hotel stay.
Its basic responsibilities are:
- Reservations;
- Registration and checkout for guests;
- Guest Service coordination;
- Providing information;
- Managing yields;
- Night audit;
- Providing in-house sales.
All these functions can be divided into 2 groups:
- Front of the house activities
- Back of the house activities
All functions are fulfilled by stuff working under the front office manager. Big hotels require having many sub-departments and more staff members, whereas in small hotels one employee can perform a wide variety of duties.
Sub Departments of Front Office
Reservations:
- Manage all booking calls for all bookings, such as free individual traveler (FIT) or classes, and even make a reservation
- Handle all booking requests by some other means, such as fax, telex, e-mail, etc.
- Maintain reservation rack
- Maintain an accurate and up-to-date inventory of rooms
- Deal with all the sources of the reservation including a travel agent, airline crew, business, etc
- Set booking rates and closeout dates if fully booked
- Makes Efforts to sell the rooms
- Eventually, keep a clear record of the booking, space forecasting, etc. to make the later process run smoothly.
Reception / Registration:-
- This is one of the most critical parts because they are in constant touch with the guest right from arrival to departure time.
- Reception workers perform such tasks as welcoming the visitor to the hotel, registering them and assigning them rooms
- Complete Full formalities for pre-registration of VIP SPATT members, groups, etc.
- Maintain various records such as identification cards, C-forms, vouchers for services, a slip of travel, a note of inconsistencies, occupancy list and statistics, etc.
- Execute formalities of government relating to foreigners such as C- Form
- Coordinate room clearance with the housekeeping team.
Bell Desk:-
- It is also a very important section of FO since the bell boys are the first staff with whom guests come into touch as soon as they reach the hotel
- Throughout the arrival and departure process, the bell boys help the guest to carry the luggage from the lobby to the bed, and from the bed to the lobby.
- Carries out various miscellaneous jobs for the guest and the official job given by the F.O.M.
- Responsible for the delivery of newspapers in the rooms.
- Does the guest paging too
- Maintains and sells postal stamps.
- Maintains documents such as bell boy logbook, check-in, and check-out card, newspaper register, postal stamp register, scanty baggage register, left baggage register, etc.
Concierge:-
- In certain hotels, concierge offers information to the guest when there is a need for longer interactions, such as planning a route, etc., and this can be considered an extended information desk.
- This is a French word that means porter-doorkeeper, and also refers to hospitality.
Cashier:-
- Opening and maintaining of the guest folio.
- Posting room charge in guest folio.
- All credit charges are recorded in guest folio.
- Maintaining a record of the cash received from the guest.
- Preparing bills at check-out time.
- Receiving account payment cash/traveler cheques/credit cards.
- Organizing foreign currency exchange for guest account settlement
Travel Desk :-
- Arranging pick-up and drop facilities for guests as they arrive and leave.
- Provide vehicles to guests at pre-determined rates upon request.
- Creating travel plans, such as train reservation/cancelation/modifications, or purchasing guest air tickets.
- Half-day or full-day sightseeing tours to and around the area.
- Arranging for guides who can communicate in the guest’s language.