Hotel Front Office Management, 3rd Edition

C H A P T E R 1 3Promoting In-House SalesOPENINGDILEMMACHAPTER FOCUS POINTSThe food and beverage manager has spent several thousand dollars on a marketingstudy to determine the dining needs of in-house guests. The chef has• Role of the front office in ahotel’s marketing program• Planning a point-of-salefront officerewritten each menu to reflect those needs. However, the bell staff and frontdesk clerks continue to recommend the MidTown Deli around the corner as “a nice placeto get something good to eat anytime of the day.”As the hospitality industry grows more sophisticated, with concern for delivering qualityservices, maximizing potential sales in all profit centers of the hotel is important.Additionalsales to current guests—in the form of future reservations, in-house dining, room service,lounge and entertainment patronage, gift shop purchases, and the like—will assist in producinga favorable profit-and-loss statement. The front office plays a key role in promotingthese sales, and the front office manager must develop and implement a plan to optimizethe sales opportunities available to the front office staff. This plan includesfocusingonareasfor promotion, developing objectives and procedures, incentive programs, training programsfor personnel, budgets, tracking systems for employee feedback, and profitability.The Role of the Front Office in Marketing and SalesThe front office is often seen as an information source and a request center for guestsand hotel employees. Front office staff may need to field questions such as: “Has the frontTLFeBOOK