Guest Cycle in Hotel

The Guest Cycle suggests a systematic approach to managing front office operations. Hotel guest cycle may also be divided into 4 fundamental stages. Inside these four phases there are fundamental mission related to guest services and visitor accounting.

Front Office workers must be mindful of visitor offerings and visitor accounting events in any respect phases of the visitor keep. Front office center employees can with no trouble serve the guest if they have got a transparent working out of the float of business in hotel. Guest Cycle also represents a scientific technique to front place of business operations.  The four stages of the guest cycle are:

PRE-ARRIVAL

• The guest chooses a hotel during this stage. The guest’s choice can be affected by many factors including previous experiences with the hotel, advertisements and recommendations from the travel agents, friends or business associates.
• This decision may also be influenced by the ease of making reservations and how the reservation agent describes the hotel and its facilities, room rates and amenities. The attitude, efficiency of the front office staff may influence a caller’s decision to stay at a particular hotel. A reservation agent must be able to respond quickly and accurately to requests for future accommodation.
• If a reservation can be accepted as requested, the reservation agent creates a reservation record. The creation of a reservation record initiates the hotel guest cycle. This record enables the hotel to personalize guest service and schedule needed staff and facilities. By confirming a reservation, the hotel verifies a guest’s room request and personal information and assures the guest that his or her needs will be addressed.
• The hotel may also be able to perform pre-registration with the information collected. Pre-registration mainly includes assigning a specific room and rate for guest who has not yet arrived and creating guest folios.

ARRIVAL

• The arrival stage of the guest cycle includes registration and rooming functions. When the guest arrives at the hotel, he or she establishes a business relationship with the hotel through the front office staff. The front office desk agent should determine the guest’s reservation status before beginning the registration process. Guests without reservation or the walk in guests, present an opportunity for front desk agents to sell guestrooms.
• To sell successfully, the front desk agents must be very familiar with the hotel room types and guest services and be able to describe them in a positive way. A guest will not register if he or she is not convinced of the value of renting a particular hotel room. A registration record should include information about the guest’s intended method of payment, the planned length of stay, special requests such as a rollaway bed or particular room location. It should also include the guest’s telephone number, address and signature. Obtaining the guest’s signature is a very important part of the registration process. Front desk agents must possess knowledge about the difference in amenities provided in all rooms. New properties coming up should be barrier-free in design. This means that facilities and accommodation must be designed with the disabled in mind. Some of the features of barrier-free guestrooms include extra wide doors for wheelchairs, extra large bathrooms; grab bars at the toilet and in the bath, low vanity counter tops. Once the guest decides to rent a room, the front desk agent turns his attention to identifying the guest’s method of payment; the front office should take measures at the beginning of the guest cycle to ensure eventual payment. Registration is complete once methods of payment and the guest’s departure date have been established. The guest may be given the room key and the bellboy may be asked to show the guest to his room. When the guest arrives at the room and accepts it, the occupancy stage of the guest cycle begins.

OCCUPANCY

• The manner in which the front office staff represents the hotel is important throughout the guest cycle, particularly during the occupancy stage. The front office should respond to requests in a timely and accurate way to maximize guest satisfaction. The front office staff must encourage repeat visits. Front desk agents should carefully attend to complaints and try to find satisfactory solutions. Front desk accounting records must be periodically reviewed for accuracy and completeness.

DEPARTURE

The final element of guest service is checking the guest out of the hotel and creating a guest history record. At check out, the guest vacates the room, receives an accurate statement of account for settlement, returns the room keys and departs from the hotel. Once the guest has checked out, the front office updates the room availability status and notifies the housekeeping department. During check out, the front office determines whether the guest was satisfied with the stay and encourages the guest to return to the hotel in the future. The more information the hotel has about its guests, the better it can serve their needs and develop marketing strategies to increase business. Once the guest has checked out, the front office can analyze data related to the guest’s stay. Front office reports can be used to review operations, isolate problem areas, indicate where corrective action may be needed and point out business trends. Analysis can help managers establish a standard of performance, which can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the front office operations.