Pearson New International Edition International pcl tp indd 1

MANAGING FORECAST DATA
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from groups. Although no standard definition for group exists in the industry, many
hotels and hotel companies consider any entity reserving 10 or more guestrooms at one
time to have made a group reservation. In smaller hotels, group reservations are made
by the FOM. In larger properties, the director of sales (DOS) or a member of the sales
and marketing staff will likely be responsible for group reservations.
FRONT OFFICE SEMANTICS
Group (reservation):
Any entity that reserves 10 or more guestrooms at one time.
DOS (director of sales):
Person with overall responsibility for a hotel’s sales efforts. Sometimes called
DOSM (director of sales and marketing).
The reservation patterns of travelers who are part of a group must be considered
separately from patterns of transient travelers. When evaluating group activity, most
FOMs find that the two best predictive sources of room demand are group history
and group booking pace.
Group History
A useful group history includes information about the group’s previous date or dates
of stay, room preferences, room rates paid, form of payment, and any other information
desired by the DOS or FOM. Unlike a history of a transient guest, however, a history
of a group probably does not exist in the hotel’s PMS, because in many cases a group’s
previous stay will not have been in the same hotel. Sometimes groups do meet at the
same hotel year after year or on a rotational basis, and group data will be available.
However, when this is not the case, the FOM may have to rely on group history
information provided by other hotels or by the group itself.
Figure 13 details the group history of an organization requesting a group room
block at the Altoona Hotel. The group has met at the Altoona for three consecutive
years. Note that in 2005, the peak arrival day (the day when most attendees arrive) was
Wednesday because 71 rooms were picked up on that day. By contrast, only 18 new
rooms for the group were sold to the group on Thursday (89 rooms 
⫺
71 rooms), 32
new rooms were added on Friday (121 rooms 
⫺
89 rooms), and 34 additional rooms
(155 rooms 
⫺
121 rooms) were sold on Saturday. So Saturday was the group’s peak
night, because no other night had a larger number of rooms sold to the group.