Hotel Front Office Management, 3rd Edition

190 CHAPTER 7: GUEST REGISTRATION125 rooms occupied on the night of November 1 with 25 room checkouts scheduled forthe morning of November 2, the front office manager would determine that 100 roomsare available for guests to use on November 2, as follows:200 rooms available in the hotel 125 rooms occupied on Nov. 1 75 rooms available for sale on Nov. 1 25 room checkouts on Nov. 2 100 rooms available for sale on Nov. 2From this 100-room inventory, the front office manager or a designated front office staffperson is able to determine which room should be assigned to which guest reservation.Continuing with the previous example, if there are 90 guest reservations for the eveningof November 2 and 35 of them have indicated an early arrival of 10:00 a.m., then theperson who is blocking the rooms for November 2 will block their rooms from the roomsunoccupied on November 1. The remaining 55 reservations can have their rooms blockedinto the remaining available room inventory. In some hotels, no specific match is madebetween a guest reservation and guest room. Instead, the person who is blocking roomswill provide a list to front desk clerks that indicates that certain rooms with two doublebeds, king-size bed, facilities for the handicapped, and the like, are held for guests withreservations. Hence, the first-come, first-served concept of matching reservation withavailable room is followed.Meeting Guest RequestsGuests’ needs usually include bed requirements, room location, floor plan arrangements,ancillary equipment, rooms designed and equipped for special needs, immediateavailability, and price. If the guest has a reservation, the room selection will be blockedprior to the guest’s arrival. The walk-in guest presents opportunities to the front deskclerk to optimize a sale and meet the needs of the guest. Opportunities to sell are discussedlater in this section.SPECIAL ACCOMMODATIONSThe first issue in room selection is meeting the guest’s requests for special accommodations.The general trend in designing hotel rooms includes placing two beds, usuallyking-size, queen-size, or double, in one room, which can accommodate the single guest,businesspeople sharing a room, a family of two adults and three children, and variousother guest parties. This design permits the front desk clerk more freedom in assigning aroom, since so many different needs can be met. Hotels with some rooms containing twotwin beds or one twin bed and one double bed or one king-size bed with no room for arollaway restrict the front desk clerk in assigning rooms and therefore affect the bottom-TLFeBOOK