Reservations Week (5)

What is a reservation? It is a booking in advance for a space for a specified period of time. E.g. Hotel ballroom, restaurant booking, airline seat, a theatre seat, a hotel guestroom, a doctor’s appointment.

Introduction From a guest’s point of view, the most important outcome of the reservations process is having a guestroom ready and waiting when the guest arrives. To achieve these outcomes, the hotel must have efficient reservation procedures in place. Here are the reservation process activities:-

Reservation Activities · Conduct reservation inquiry. · Determine room and rate availability. · Create reservation record. · Confirm reservation record. · Maintain reservation record. · Produce reservation reports. · Research, plan, and monitor reservations.

The guest must provide us a method of payment. Types of Reservations Guaranteed Reservation: Insures that the hotel will hold a room for the guest until a specific time of guest’s scheduled arrival date . The guest must provide us a method of payment. If the guest does not show up or cancel properly, the guest will be charged for one night accommodation. If the hotel then fails to provide the room for a guaranteed reservation, legal penalties can be applied if the guest files a complaint. In order to guarantee a reservation, guests can choose one of the following methods: [i.e. Check-out time or start of the hotel’s day Shift or any time the lodging property chooses

Guaranteed Reservations The reservation can be guaranteed by   Prepayment · Credit card · Advance deposit Travel agent voucher/miscellaneous charge order (MCO) · Corporate (direct billing account)

Non-guaranteed Reservation Non-guaranteed Reservation: Insures that the hotel agrees to hold a room for the guest until a stated reservation cancellation hour (Usually 6 p.m.) on the day of arrival. It is common for hotels planning on full occupancy or nearing full occupancy to accept only guaranteed reservation once a specified number of expected arrivals is achieved.

overbooking The practice of overbooking—accepting reservations for more rooms than are available by forecasting the number of no-show reservations, stayovers, understays, and walk-ins, with the goal of attaining 100 percent occupancy—is viewed by the general public with skepticism. As a future hotelier, you should prepare for the onerous task of developing a policy on overbooking. The front office manager is responsible for administering this policy.

Stayovers are currently registered guests who wish to extend their stay beyond the time for which they made reservations. Accurate records by traveler category (corporate, group, leisure) reveal the stayover rate of each. For example, employees of a corporation who travel with spouses may extend a Thursday and Friday business trip to include a Saturday. Similarly, a group conference scheduled from Monday through Thursday May encourage the attendees to stay longer to sightsee. Understays are guests who arrive on time but decide to leave before their predicted date of departure. Leisure travelers may find their tourist attraction less interesting than anticipated. Urgent business may require the corporate client to return to the office sooner than expected. Maintaining accurate records helps the front office manager predict understays.

A welcome sector of the hotel market, walk-in guests, can enhance daily occupancy percentages when effectively managed. The front office manager must be aware of activity in the local area. Heavy tourist seasons, special tourist events, conventions, and the like will increase the number of potential guests. Awareness of such possibilities helps the front office manager plan. Walk-in numbers are often higher if the front office manager maintains good relations with the front office managers of nearby hotels, who may refer guests to the property when their own are fully booked. Sending guests who cannot be accommodated to nearby hotels is a win-win situation for guests and hotels.

When these occupancy categories are tracked, the front office manager can more accurately predict occupancy. The front office manager can obtain the data for this Formula by reviewing the property management system (PMS) reservation module, which lists the groups, corporate clients, and individual guests who have made reservations for a specific period. Also, the front office manager should check tourist activity in the area, Business events planned in other hotels, and other local special events.

The following occupancy management formula considers confirmed reservations, guaranteed reservations, no-show factors for these two types of reservations, predicted stayovers, predicted understays, and predicted walk-ins to determine the number of additional room reservations needed to achieve 100 percent occupancy. No-show factors are based on prior experience with people with confirmed or guaranteed reservations who did not show up.

Here is an example of how to use this formula: If a 200-room lodging property has 75 confirmed reservations with a 5 percent no Show factor in that category, 71 rooms can be predicted to be occupied by Guests with confirmed reservations. The no-show factor is based on historical records of this category for this property maintained and reviewed by the front office manager. 2. There are 100 guaranteed reservations with a historical no-show rate of 2 percent. This means that 2 rooms have probably been reserved by no-show guests and may be available for sale. The policy of the hotel may or may not allow the sale of these 2 rooms. If the hotel knows of other hotels in the immediate area that have Available rooms for that particular night, the front office manager might be willing to walk a guest with a guaranteed reservation to another hotel if all the guests with guaranteed reservations arrive. It is important to be extremely cautious in this category. An unpleasant scene can occur if an exhausted guest arrives at 3:00 A.M. with a guaranteed reservation and finds no vacancies.

3. The predicted number of stayovers at this given time—based on historical records, with considerations for the season of the year, tourist attractions, nature of the current guests (convention, tourist, or business traveler)—is 4 rooms. This number of rooms must be subtracted from the number of rooms available for sale. 4. The predicted number of understays at this given time, considering factors similar to those applied to stayovers, is 5. This number of rooms is added to the number of rooms available for sale. 5. The predicted number of walk-ins for this given period—using historical records and available information concerning tourist events, activity at other hotels, attractions in nearby communities, and the like—is 8.

Guest’s name, address and telephone number Reservation Inquiry Guests can communicate their reservation inquiries in person, over the telephone, via mail, through facsimile, telex, e-mail… While getting a reservation inquiry, the reservation staff shall obtain the following guest-related information: Guest’s name, address and telephone number Company or travel agency name Date of arrival and departure Type and number of rooms requested

Number of people in the group, if applicable cont. Desired room rate Number of people in the group, if applicable Method of payment and/or guarantee Any other special requests  Most of the above mentioned information is used to create a reservation record.

The seven steps reservation sales process 1. Greet the caller. ( thank you for calling Holiday inn. This is Mary speaking How can I help you today?) 2. Identify caller’s need ( arrival date, departure date, preference ....) 3. Provide an overview of the hotel’s feature ( number of restaurant, swimming pool ) 4. Make a room recommendation and room rate. 5. Ask for the sales ( Would you like me to book the reservation for you?

cont. 6. Create a reservation record according to the hotel procedures. 7. Thank the caller. Closing a call as warmly as opening a call leaves the caller with a sense of confidence that they have made the correct decision. The reservation function is a sales process, if the reservation staff is unenthusiastic, the caller will not a have a positive impression of the hotel and may decide to go elsewhere.

cont. Reservations can be made for individuals, group, tours or conventions. An individual, not part of the a group is referred as a FIT. ( free independent traveller) The customers make reservation by using different sources.

Sources of Reservations Central Reservation System · Global Distribution System · Intersell Agencies (for example flight centre) · Property Direct · Internet

Central Reservation System (CRS) A central (or computerised) reservation system that controls and maintains the reservations for several hotels in one location, and automatically redirects the reservation to the required hotel.

Central reservation systems The majority of hotel groups belong to one or more Central Reservation Systems  A central reservation system is composed of a central reservation office, member hotels connected together via communication devices, and potential guests. It exchanges room availability information with members hotel.  Central Reservation Office [CRO] offers its services via a 24-hours toll free telephone number(s) [Green Numbers].

continued On return, central reservation offices charges a fee for the utilization of its services which might take the form of a flat fee and a variable fee, or a flat percentage of potential room revenue, actual room revenue, and/or Rooms Division gross profit…

Global Distribution Systems Computerized system by which reservation-related information is stored and retrieved for multiple organizations. Global Distribution Systems [GDS] System including several Central Reservation Offices connected to each other. Selling hotel rooms is accomplished by connecting the hotel reservation system with the GDS system. GDSs have become a powerful force in hotel reservation.  

Inter sell Agencies Inters ell Agencies are special types of central reservation offices contracting to handle reservation for more than one Product Line [ex: Handle at the same time Airline Tickets, Car Rental, Hotel Reservation…]  “ One Call Does it All Approach “!

Property Direct Reservation System: Even though many of the five-star hotels rely heavily on central reservation offices and intersell agencies, some potential guests still find it convenient, and personal to call directly the hotel to communicate a reservation inquiry.

Property Direct Reservations Property direct reservations are made in a several ways · Telephone · Mail · Property-to-property · FAX · E-mail

Group Bookings Types of groups Tour groups Conference/convention Charity groups (fund raising) Flight crews School groups Sporting groups

Reservation Availability After receiving a reservation request, the hotel might accept it, as it is, if there is room availability. If not, the reservation department should suggest alternative room types, dates, and/or rates, to the potential guest. If, however, the potential guest insists on his/her previous request, the hotel should suggest an alternative hotel. That's one of the main reasons why we need to maintain good relation-ships with nearby competing Hotels

continued The reservation department should always compare historical reservation volumes against actual arrivals. The main reason is to cope with overbooking, which a situation occurring when the total number of rooms reserved for a certain period of time exceeds the total number of rooms available for sale, for the same period of time.

Number of rooms reserved for a specific date continued In order to cope with the overbooking problem, some statistical and historical data should be stored and processed by the hotel and should be continuously updated. Such data should include: Number of rooms reserved for a specific date Number of rooms occupied by stayovers (for a certain specific date) Forecasted no-shows percentage Forecasted understays percentage Forecasted overstays percentage Forecasted cancellation percentage Number of out of order rooms for a specific date

Overbooking (Occupancy Management) The practice of overbooking—accepting reservations for more rooms than are available by forecasting the number of no-show reservations, stayovers, understays, and walk-ins, with the goal of attaining 100 percent occupancy—is viewed by the general public with skepticism. As a future hotelier, you should prepare for the onerous task of developing a policy on overbooking. The front office manager is responsible for administering this policy.

Reasons for Travel Business Pleasure Education Family Religious Special events (e.g.Olympic Games)

Types of Market Sources F.I.T. – free/fully independent traveller Group Corporate Government Package

Room Rate Factors Location (CBD, Country) Hotel Rating (Star/Flag/Crown) Room attributes/aspects Hotel facilities Competition Time of year Intended client

Room Rate Types Rack Corporate Government Airline (delayed flights, crew, package) Travel Agents (package, familiarisation, group, F.I.T.) Groups/conference Packages (honeymoon, weekend, midweek)

Five steps to selling Know your product Know your guest Match the guest to the best alternative Be aware you are part of the sales team Always sell the product before the price

Guest History Assist with marketing strategies Ensure future reservations are more efficient Ensure a quicker check-in Ensure guest’s needs are met Assist with check-out

History data Reservation forms Registration cards Guest folios on check-out History can be stored and maintained: Manually Computerised

Details Provided to Guest Room release time (6pm is standard) Guaranteed reservation Check-in time Acceptable MOP Parking facilities Hotel facilities and services

Cancellation Retrieve original reservation Note date and time cancellation received Record contact name of person cancelling Update manual and computer records File cancelled reservation Apply cancellation fee as per hotel policy Thank caller

Amendments Retrieve original reservation Note date and time amendment received Record contact name of person amending Update manual and computer records File amended reservation Thank caller

Departments concerned with reservations report Housekeeping To enable accurate staff rostering Budgeting, planning for refurbishment, ordering of supplies Food and Beverage As above

Departments concerned with reservations report Maintenance To enable accurate staff rostering Budgeting, planning for refurbishment, ordering of supplies Concierge/Porters/Front Desk As above

Types of Reports Occupancy Arrivals Cancellations Special requests V.I.P.S Black lists Market Segments Guest history

Occupancy Reports Prepared on a regular basis for: rostering budgets maximising occupancy planning refurbishment ordering

Special Requests Report Housekeeping Cots/rollaways/special linen/vases/flowers/baby sitters/early and late arrivals and departures Room Service Champagne/fruit baskets/flowers/VIP mini bars Porter/ Concierge Theatre bookings/restaurant bookings/hire cars/early arrivals/late departures/wheelchair access/luggage storage/red carpet

Special Requests Report Food and Beverage Dietary, Group meals, Children, Cultural Requirements, Seating, Groups departing early Functions Dietary, AV Equipment, Meal break times, Business Services

Group and Conference Details ETA/ETD Rooming list ready Rooms Assigned Staffing requirements Porter/Concierge (Luggage collection times) Food and Beverage Functions department Hospitality room/area

Black List “Bad” debts (previous accounts remain unsettled) Malicious damage to hotel property Theft of hotel property Verbal/physical assault of staff members

Reservation Reports: In the reservation department, the widely used management reservation reports include: Reservation transaction report Commission agent report Turnaway report (sometimes called the refusal report) revenue forecast report

Potential Reservation Problems 4 main common problems that might be encountered: 1) Errors in a reservation record: Record a wrong arrival or departure date Misspell the guest’s name or reverse it Reserve for the caller instead of the guest

Potential Reservation Problems 2) Misunderstandings due to industry jargon: Confirmed versus guaranteed reservation Double room versus 2 beds Connecting rooms versus adjacent rooms

Potential Reservation Problems 3. Miscommunications with external reservation systems: Book a guest in the wrong hotel Book a guest in the wrong city [ex: Novotel, Melbourne versus Novotel, Sydney]

Potential Reservation Problems (continued) 4. Online reservation system failures: Fail to update central reservation system concerning room availability or to communicate rate changes in real time Delays in communicating reservation requests Communication Equipment used may become technologically obsolete or inoperatable