Hotel Management Part 2

Hotel Management Part 2

Effectively manage the billing and guest folio process in a hotel

Scholars of hotel management consider service quality as an example for satisfaction of the guests. 'Perceived Service Quality' has been defined by Zeithaml et.al, (1996), Parasuraman et,al. (1985), and Qu and Nelson (1998) as the universal assessment by customers of the by and large superiority or excellence of a service. PMS (Property Management System), for majority of the hotels, is the key technology that is classified as “an application programs set, which directly connects to the hotel's back and front office activities such as, room status management, account settlement, folio management, guest accounting, check-out & in management, room and rate assignment, reservation management and revenue management” (Cahill & Kasavana, 2003, Pp.4).

Figure 1: Hotel PMS System (Source: Bardi, et.al, 2003; Cahill & Kasavana, 2003)

Therefore, in order to effectively manage the billing and guest folio process in a hotel a PMS (Property Management System) would be implemented. This is due to the fact that this system is fundamental to everything that goes within the operations of a hotel with numerous mission-critical operational processes. PMS has developed further than the solitary procedure of check-out & in to multiple-function software, which allocates human resources, performs inventory management, “pulls and pushes” rates to 3rd party OTA (Online Travel Agents), manages online distribution channels, links to loyalty programs and incorporates revenue management. Nonetheless, few of the highly decisive processes like hotel RM (Revenue Management) solutions depend not just on the past information on demand and price, but even on the capability of reading the market. It is evident that not every functionality of the PMS is utilized by the properties. It appears that the core functionality, which is the guest/accounting billing and room allocation persists to be the dominating one.

Design of the guest services and processing of arrivals/rooming

Satisfaction of guests is the assessment of the guests whether or not the service quality comes up to their expectations. Guests seem to be dissatisfied by performance, which falls below their expectations. Within the hotel industry, guests' satisfaction is in terms of their contentment with the services of the arrivals/rooming department and the customer relations developed by the staff of the hotel (Parasuraman, et.al, 1985; Al Rousan, 2011). Therefore, in order to design the guest services and processing of arrivals/rooming to ensure high-quality hotel operations and enhance customer satisfaction the SERVQUAL model would be implemented. The SERVQUAL model has 5 dimensions: tangibility (Kang & James, 2004), reliability (Ladhari, 2009), responsiveness (Cheung & Law, 1998), assurance (Pitt & Jeantrout, 1994) and empathy (Mohsin, 2011).

Figure 2: SERVQUAL management framework (Source: Parasuraman, et.al, (1985))

Procedures for handling guest complaints

For improving the levels of customer service, quality and investing in innovative methods, hotel need to boost productivity in all areas and increase their profitability too. Provided the elevated expectation of the end-user, each time a request fails to be settled on time, repetitive requests would be places or the users might lodge a complaint. In the meantime, the requests ...