Hotel Front Office Management, 3rd Edition

360 CHAPTER 13: PROMOTING IN-HOUSE SALESFigure 13-1. Displays such as this one alert guests to in-house entertainment. (Photocourtesy of Lincoln Plaza Hotel & Conference Center, Reading, Pennsylvania.)office manager produced the room sales forecast yet?”; “Is there a block of rooms availablefor June 3–7?”; “To which rooms is this seminar group assigned?”; “Is there someone onduty who can greet and provide information for the tourist group that is arriving this afternoon?”;“Has the daily event board been set up in the lobby?”; or “Has the daily messagebeen set on the great sign?” These are typical questions asked of the front office by other departmentsin the hotel. These tasks are a necessary part of any hotel’s operations. However,today more than ever, hotel management demands more of the front office.In an article published in Canadian Hotel and Restaurant, Avinash Narula reports:As market conditions have changed, the nature and importance of the functionsperformed by the front office have also changed from being an order-taking departmentto an order-generating or sales department. If one looks at the balancesheet of any hotel, it will become obvious that the major portion of the profits, onaverage 60 percent, come from room sales. 1This change in the nature of the front office’s role, from a passive order taker to anactive order generator, challenges the front office manager to review the front office staff’sestablished routine. The front office manager needs to figure out the best way to directthe energies of the staff to support the efforts of the marketing and sales department.TLFeBOOK