Pearson New International Edition International pcl tp indd 1

FRONT OFFICE SEMANTICS
Executive committee:
Short for executive operating committee—members of the hotel’s management
team (generally department heads) responsible for top leadership and overall administration of the
property.
Organizational culture:
Pattern of shared beliefs and values that affect norms of behavior and that sig-
nificantly influence the behavior of the organization’s members.
Today’s hotel guests desire good service, and they are willing to pay for it.
Effective managers, including those in the front office, continually ask this question:
“What is best for our guests?” One of the primary responsibilities of managers is to
address this question, and the effort is never completed because guests’ needs change
over time. If managers make decisions considering their guests’ needs a priority, their
hotel is likely to be successful. In contrast, when managers focus on maximizing rev-
enue, minimizing costs, and doing what is easiest or what has always been done, guest
service will likely suffer as will the long-term (and possibly short-term) financial
health of the property.
Successful hotels maintain an infrastructure of quality within which they develop,
implement, and evaluate strategies to consistently meet guest service expectations.
Fortunately, the basics of a quality service system are not difficult to understand or
implement. Unfortunately, however, these basics often require changing “the way
things are done” in the hotel as existing work processes are studied, as planning
evolves, and as new work processes are implemented. Even more difficult for many
hotel managers is the need to rethink the role of their nonmanagement staff mem-
bers, including those in the front office, as they recognize that all employees are an
integral part of the hotel’s guest service team.