When guests assess the quality of a hotel, they are largely going to be judging the effectiveness of hotel operations. However, these operations are made up of a number of interlinked departments, which need to deliver on their own offering, while also collaborating with other departments to provide a seamless guest experience. In this hotel operations guide, you can learn more about hotel operations and how to run a successful hotel.
Quick Menu
- What is the Hotel Industry?
- What Are Hotel Operations?
- 6 Main Hotel Operations Departments
- Vital Software to Run Hotel Operations Smoothly
- Essential Strategies to Maximise the Effectiveness of Hotel Operations
- The Role of Technology in Housekeeping Hotel Operations
- Technology Solutions for Front Office Hotel Operations
- The Most Essential Tech for Restaurant Hotel Operations
What is the Hotel Industry?
Before diving deeper into the hotel operations guide, it is sensible to start with the basics. The hotel industry is the name given to a section of the hospitality industry that centres around guest lodgings and overnight stays. However, it does not include long-term or permanent forms of accommodation.
Despite the name, the hotel industry is a catch-all term, which describes all forms of temporary, overnight guest accommodation, including hotels, resorts, motels, bed and breakfasts, inns, hostels, guest houses, and holiday cottages, and more. In addition to providing overnight accommodation, many hotels offer other guest services too.
You can learn more about the hotel industry, how it is defined, and view a breakdown of the properties that are usually considered to be part of the industry by reading “Hotel Industry: Everything You Need to Know About Hotels!”
What Are Hotel Operations?
Hotel operations is a broad term, which refers to various interlinked departments responsible for the day-to-day running of a hotel. This includes management of the hotel and its processes, ensuring customers are provided with a good level of service, keeping track of income, expenses, and other business financial information, and similar tasks.
Maintenance of the hotel, the provision of food and beverages to customers, workforce management, housekeeping, marketing and the handling of reservations also all fall under this broad hotel operations umbrella.
All of the different components that make up hotel operations need to be working hand-in-hand, and this requires careful coordination of efforts and effective communication between different departments. When all of these components are synchronised and working effectively, a hotel will function properly and provide a high-quality service.
Video: A Day in the Hotel Industry
6 Main Hotel Operations Departments
In total, there are six main departments which can be regarded as being critical for hotel operations. You can learn more about each of these departments, what they do, and what their contribution is in the sections below:
1. Management and Finance
Hotel managers and management teams are responsible for keeping daily hotel operations running smoothly. This means overseeing strategic decisions and ensuring each department is pulling in the same direction, overseeing the hosting of events, supervising other departments at key times, and maintaining hotel security.
A major part of hotel management involves actually managing employees and ensuring everyone is happy, healthy, and well-trained. Beyond this, managers need to ensure their properties are fully compliant with rules and regulations within the hotel industry, and they need to manage overall hotel budgets and the budgets for different departments.
Some of these responsibilities are shared or delegated to the finance department, which is specifically focused on hotel finance information. This can include maintaining records of income, expenses, profit and tax. It also involves taking strategic actions to optimise revenue and profit and deliver the best possible financial results.
2. Front Office Department
The front office department is the most visible department within a hotel, as far as guests are concerned, and is generally situated around the lobby or foyer area. Front office staff are responsible for guest services, and this can take many forms, from helping guests to check in on arrival and assisting them with checking out again, to coordinating various efforts around the hotel to ensure their stay is a pleasant one.
In addition to this, the front office is responsible for settling guest accounts, and maintaining records on hotel guests, including the duration of their stay and any preferences they have outlined.
A significant part of the role of the front office is to ensure that various employees and departments providing customer service know what to do and when to do it. It is also important to understand that the front office is the first and primary point of contact for guests who have questions or require assistance during their stay.
3. Reservations and Marketing Department
The reservations element of hotel operations is sometimes found within the front office, but larger hotels may have a dedicated reservations department. Regardless, the reservations team are responsible for handling hotel bookings, making amendments to existing bookings, and communicating with third parties, like travel agencies.
The reservations department will usually work extremely closely with the marketing department, and in some situations, they actually function as a single department, responsible for all aspects of selling rooms and promoting hotels.
Marketing teams are responsible for advertising hotels, handling the different distribution channels used to sell hotel rooms to guests, and building the profile and reputation of the business. Marketing requires a constant awareness of major hotel trends and customer expectations and is ultimately focused on generating bookings and revenue.
4. Food and Beverage Department
As the name indicates, the food and beverage department is responsible for all hotel operations that are related to the management and provision of food and beverages. It is one of the largest departments in most hotels and can often be the single biggest department in terms of the number of people employed to work within it.
Within the broader field of food and beverages, there are multiple different areas that need to be carefully managed, including hotel bars, hotel restaurants, and any room service options that offer food and beverages.
Aside from providing guests staying overnight with food and drinks, this department may also be responsible for hosting or assisting with events within the hotel, such as banquets, business conferences, weddings, and other functions. The food and beverage department contributes significantly to financial outcomes for most hotels.
5. Housekeeping Department
No hotel operations guide would be complete without examining the role of the housekeeping department. Essentially, this is the department that is responsible for ensuring guests are presented with a clean, hygienic, safe and pleasant environment, and this includes their rooms and the various shared spaces within the hotel.
Some of the main hotel operations that the housekeeping team are responsible for include cleaning and preparing rooms between guests’ stays, cleaning rooms during guests’ stays, changing sheets and towels and ensuring common areas are clean. The importance of housekeeping staff increased further during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In general, housekeeping teams work closely with hotel management and the front office department, in order to ensure all of their work is carried out on time. Housekeeping employees are also typically responsible for washing bed sheets and towels, tidying common areas to avoid clutter, and maintaining public bathrooms.
6. Maintenance Department
Finally, the maintenance department is responsible for hotel operations related to repairs within the hotel. This can include maintenance work within a variety of areas, such as heating, ventilation and plumbing. It may also include repairing hotel technology and making fixes to the structure of the hotel building itself.
Essentially, the maintenance department is tasked with ensuring that everything within the hotel is functioning the way that it should. It is important to understand that much of the work of the maintenance department is also preventative maintenance, with the aim of avoiding situations where systems, amenities or technology actually break.
In many hotels, the maintenance department functions as its own entity, although some hotels combine the maintenance department with the housekeeping department, and this is especially common in smaller properties.
Vital Software to Run Hotel Operations Smoothly
Modern times call for modern solutions, and today’s hotel operations are heavily reliant on the effective use of relevant software packages. Below, you can learn about the most essential software for smooth hotel operations.
Hotel PMS
A hotel property management system, or hotel PMS, is a comprehensive software solution, which assists managers, business leaders and employees with the handling of day-to-day hotel operations. It can be especially crucial for allowing different hotel departments to communicate and coordinate their efforts.
Through the use of a hotel PMS, it will be possible to view and manage information related to reservations, while a wide range of front office activities can be handled through the software. Tasks can be allocated, schedules can be shared, the status of specific rooms can be communicated, and customer data can be collected and organised.
On top of this, a hotel PMS can often connect to third-party software solutions, allowing an even greater number of tasks to be carried out through the PMS. You can learn much more about this software, how it works, and its value for those in the hotel industry by reading “PMS System: What Are the Most Important Features?”
Hotel POS
A hotel POS, or point of sale system, is used to process financial transactions within a hotel and handle all similar hotel operations. The POS system will allow users to process payments from customers, and this can typically include either online or in-person transactions made using cards, cash, or mobile wallets.
Some POS systems can also be used on mobile or tablet devices, allowing for portable payment processing. In addition, a POS system can also be used to gather valuable data about the business, allowing for up-to-date financial and inventory information, and the latest information on the number of sales made.
Find out more about how hotel POS systems work, what it included within a good hotel POS solution, and how these systems can help you by reading “POS Systems: Overview and Importance in the Hospitality Industry”.
Hotel RMS
A hotel revenue management system, or RMS, is a software solution that is designed to assist with the discipline of revenue management. A simple way to think of this is the discipline of selling the right hotel room, to the right customer, in the right moment, using the right channel, while keeping costs as low as possible.
The revenue management system can assist with hotel operations by taking internal data and external industry data, and utilising it to draw conclusions about business trends. This helps hotels to better understand levels of customer demand, and a hotel RMS will also allow you to continually calculate the ideal room rate for maximum profit.
You can explore the topic of revenue management systems within hotels in far greater detail and build your understanding of the plus points by reading “Revenue Management System (RMS): What Are the Advantages?”
Essential Strategies to Maximise the Effectiveness of Hotel Operations
In addition to outlining the components of hotel operations and the software that can be used, it is important for any good hotel operations guide to also cover strategy. In the sections below, you can learn about some of the best strategies you can deploy to boost the overall effectiveness of your hotel operations.
Enforce Communication & Cross-Communication
Communication is at the very heart of any good hotel operations strategy, and it is important for hotel leaders to take steps to enforce standards in this area. This can be partially achieved through training exercises and the intelligent use of communication tools, but steps also need to be taken to actively promote cross-communication.
Essentially, cross-communication refers to communication between different departments within a business, and this is especially crucial in hotels, where so many different departments need to work collaboratively.
Hotel leaders should take steps to remove any barriers that may exist in this area, so that cross-departmental collaboration becomes as seamless as possible. Cross-communication can also include the continuous and intelligent sharing of relevant data, which can help to greatly improve the efficiency of various hotel operations.
Minimise Error Resolution Times with Software
For hotel operations to be running smoothly, it is critical that the average time between an error, failure, or problem being reported and being resolved is kept as short as possible. Therefore, it is important that software tools are used strategically to minimise error resolution times within a hotel.
Communication with the maintenance department can be critical here, because that department will be ideally placed to log issues and respond to them. However, information may also need to be made available to other departments, because some issues may be best resolved by the leaders of those departments.
The Internet of Things (IoT) and the use of IoT devices within hotel rooms can help too, because communication directly from hotel technology to a software solution can eliminate the discovery period associated with problems. Ultimately, minimising resolution times is about avoiding situations where rooms, facilities and technology are out of use.
Continuously Train Your Staff
Finally, it is essential that hotels adopt an approach based on persistent progress, and this requires continuous training of staff. Guests visit hotels and expect high levels of service and an awareness of the latest hotel trends. Additionally, they also expect a level of consistency and a sense of cohesion among the workforce.
Training sessions can help to optimise your employees’ teamwork and ability to deliver high-quality customer service, and can help hotel leaders to address any issues they have noticed. Additionally, training provides the ideal opportunity to address some of the feedback that has been received from guests staying at the hotel.
Through the use of training exercises, the team’s efforts can be elevated and standardised. The sessions can also focus on some of the steps that can be taken to go the extra mile for customers and make their stay memorable.
The Role of Technology in Housekeeping Hotel Operations
The housekeeping department has one of the most important roles when it comes to keeping hotel operations on track, but an overlooked aspect of this department is the various technology solutions that can be used to boost performance, including housekeeping software, air purifiers, artificial intelligence, and even robotic vacuum cleaners.
If you are interested in learning more about the various technology solutions available and how they can assist with housekeeping tasks, read the “Housekeeping Technology; The Latest Tech used in Hotel Housekeeping” article.
Technology Solutions for Front Office Hotel Operations
The front office and the reception area of the hotel is the most visible hotel operations department and the department that will be largely responsible for giving guests their first impressions. This makes it important to use all of the available tools at your disposal, including technology like mobile apps and self-check in desks.
To find out more about the numerous technology solutions that can assist a hotel front office department and reception area, take a look at the “Front Office Technology: The Latest Tech for the Reception Department” article.
The Most Essential Tech for Restaurant Hotel Operations
The food and beverage department is responsible for some of the most profitable hotel operations in many properties. Therefore, it should be a top priority to optimise service and attract as many guests to the restaurant as possible. One of the ways to achieve this is to use technology like online ordering systems and digital kitchen displays.
If you would like to learn more about the technology solutions that can help to elevate food and beverage services within a hotel restaurant, read “Latest Restaurant Technology Trends You Need to Know About”.
The various departments that make up the broader field of hotel operations need to work effectively on their own, but also as part of a collaborative effort to deliver the best possible guest experience. Achieving this relies on adopting the right strategies, using the best technology, and investing in high-quality software solutions.
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