Pearson New International Edition International pcl tp indd 1

Front Office Information
Drives Scheduling
Department
Directly
Indirectly
Comment
General manager
✓
Managers with propertywide
responsibility are on-site during times of
high business volume.
Marketing and sales
✓
Managers and account representatives
must be available to assist groups.
Food and beverage
✓
Front office forecasts drive operations
planning.
Accounting
✓
Managers with propertywide
responsibility are on-site during times of
high business volume.
Housekeeping
✓
Front office forecasts drive
operations planning.
Security
✓
Front office forecasts drive operations
planning.
Maintenance and 
✓
Front office forecasts drive operations
engineering
planning.
FIGURE 2
Front office information affects scheduling in other departments.
597

---

FRONT OFFICE : HUB OF THE HOTEL
Department
Examples
General manager
Data used for daily, weekly, and longer-term decision making.
Marketing and sales
Data used to determine whether group business for specific
dates is profitable and to set rates for transient guests.
Food and beverage
Data used to plan business volume for à la carte dining, room
service, and banquet operations.
Accounting
Accounts receivable data generated as guest folios are closed,
revenue data used to generate financial reports, and direct
billing activities result from front office sales.
Housekeeping
Data used to plan business volume for meeting space setup,
guestroom cleaning, and guest service requests.
Security
Data used to plan for special security needs because of
increased or special business volume.
Maintenance and engineering
Data used to plan when extensive maintenance can be done
and when additional assistance may be needed to minimize
out-of-order rooms.
FIGURE 3
Front office information used by all departments for purposes other than 
scheduling.
where problems (“challenges”) exist before they can implement corrective actions
to address them.
General managers need front office information for short-term (i.e., daily and
weekly) and longer-term decision making as they consider questions such as these:
How effective is the sales and marketing department in selling guestrooms to group
members? Is revenue from forecasted room sales in line with budget estimates? Have
tactics in this year’s business plan applicable to the sale of guestrooms been success-
ful in attracting business?
Marketing and sales staff use information about future room availability to deter-
mine whether more aggressive tactics are needed to sell rooms and to work with the
FOM to manage rate structures. Food and beverage and housekeeping managers know
that business volume will affect more than employee scheduling procedures. Food and
beverage products must be purchased, and housekeeping managers must plan for addi-
tional requests for guest service. Housekeeping managers plan deep-cleaning assign-
ments during times of low occupancy when some rooms will not be sold.
Accounting managers are affected by front office information as they manage
the collection of revenues due to the hotel, and as they prepare financial state-
ments. Front office information alerts the security director to special security
issues such as these: the need to interact with contracted security services retained
for in-hotel conferences and the need to provide special security coverage when
VIPs are scheduled to visit the property. Maintenance and engineering managers
must schedule rooms for maintenance and repair during times of low occupancy,
and they must maximize the number of rooms available during periods of high
occupancy.
The remainder of this chapter provides details about how all department man-
agers rely on front office information to make critical decisions that have an impact
on their effectiveness.
598

---