Hotel Front Office Management, 3rd Edition

142 CHAPTER 5: RESERVATIONSFRONTLINE REALITIESs front office manager of The Times Hotel, you want to project the number of additionalrooms you will need to book to achieve 100 percent occupancy for the night of April 15.6AUse the following historical data to determine the number of additional room reservationsneeded to achieve 100 percent occupancy: 500 rooms available, 100 confirmed reservations with a 5 percentno-show history, 200 guaranteed rooms with a 2 percent no-show history, 15 stayovers, 10 understays, and45 walk-ins.and reviewing potential markets and their spending habits assist the front office managernot only in meeting the goal of 100 percent occupancy but also in achieving maximumprofitability.Processing Guest ReservationsMeans of communication with the client; room inventory data banks; systems for reservation,confirmation, deposits, and cancellations; and blocking procedures, a processof reserving a room on a specific day, are the major components of a well-organized guestreservation processing system.The guest who wants to secure overnight lodging accommodations must have an efficientmeans of communicating the room reservation to the hotel, such as a toll-freephone number, fax number, or personal computer. In turn, the hotel must have a way tocheck reservation requests against a data bank of available rooms. To ensure the reliabilityof the room reservation, the hotel establishes a deposit or guarantee system that commitsthe guest to the purchase of the accommodation. A cancellation process allows the guestand the hotel the flexibility necessary to function in a complex society. A blocking procedurethat balances future commitments with present room requirements also helps thefront office manager in providing an effective room reservation processing system.Computerized Reservations SystemsThe lodging property associated with a systemwide reservation service is connected tothe system via a nationwide toll-free telephone number. The telephone number has beenwidely distributed by the marketing and sales departments of the corporation. The potentialguest who dials this toll-free number will be greeted by an operator located at thecentral reservation headquarters. This operator has access to the computerized data bankof available rooms at each participating lodging property, so that, for example, a requestfor a certain type of room for three consecutive nights (February 15, 16, and 17) at aproperty in Boston can be matched through the data bank. If the participating propertyTLFeBOOK