Hotel Front Office Management, 3rd Edition

END OF CHAPTER QUESTIONS 89The servers will arrive about one hour before thebanquet begins.It is now 11:00 a.m., and a group of the confereeshas arrived to register. They have brought along theircats and want to know where they can house them.The front desk clerk does not know where the catsare to be housed. He calls the sales department andasks for directions. The sales department says thatthe person who organized this conference specificallytold the participants that they were to leave their petsat home. This was not to be a pet show, only a business/seminarconference.The housekeeping staff is unable to get into therooms (checkout time is noon). The Biology ResearchersConference attendees have not risen becauseof the late planning meeting. Also, two of theroom attendants did not report to work this morning.It is now 1:30 p.m., and the majority of the PetOwners are in the lobby, with their pets, waiting toget into the rooms. With the air-conditioning out oforder, the lobby is bedlam. The odor and noise arebeyond description. Housekeeping calls down andsays that it will need about two more hours beforethe first 75 rooms can be released.The switchboard has been bombarded with telephonecalls for the Pet Owners. The chef is anticipatinghis call from the vendor for the Swiss chocolateice cream cake roll. He finally calls the supplierand finds out that she has been trying to call him tolet him know that the supplier is out of this product,but no one answered the phone at the front desk. Thechef is beside himself and runs out of the kitchen intothe lobby area. He finds the switchboard operatorand verbally rips him apart. The front office manageris up to her ears in kitty litter and responds likewiseto the chef. It is not the best of situations.Just when it seems that nothing else can go wrong,a group of ten Pet Owners of the Americas arrives inthe lobby with guaranteed reservations. The hotel iscompletely booked, and these additional reservationsrepresent an overbooked situation. The reservationistforgot to ask if these guests were cat or dog owners.You guessed it—they all brought along Fido. Theclamor in the lobby is now unbearable—dogs arebarking at cats, cats are hissing at dogs, and guestsare complaining loudly.The banquet manager and his crew have finishedsetting up the room for the banquet. One of the crewturns on the air-conditioning; there is a dull roar, andblue smoke pours from the vents. Thinking this isonly a temporary condition, he does not report it tothe banquet manager. Later on, the banquet managerinstructs the setup crew to take the ice sculpturesfrom the freezer and set them in front of the podiumand head table. The banquet servers will be arrivingwithin an hour to start the preparations for the banquet.If you were the front office manager, what wouldyou do to solve the immediate problems at hand?After the commotion had settled down, how wouldyou analyze the situation? List the opportunities forimproving communications between the front officeand other departments.CASE STUDY 302The following script fictionalizes a hotel generalmanager’s weekly staff meeting. Several studentsshould act the roles of staff members, while otherstudents observe and analyze the communications.Margaret Chu (general manager): Good morning,everyone! It’s great to gather once again to discussour challenges and plan for the future. Let’s see,Ana, you asked to have time today to discuss theissue of too few parking spaces in the hotel garage.Ana Chavarria (front office manager): Yes, and thisproblem is causing all kinds of difficulties for mystaff. At least ten guests a day threaten to cancelTLFeBOOK