The Guest Cycle in hotel and occupancy report

The Guest Cycle in hotel

The hotel guest stay cycle can be divided into four main stages. Within these four stages there are important task related to guest services and guest accounting.

Front office employees must be aware of guest services and guest accounting activities at all stages of the guest stay. Front office staff can effectively serve the guest if they have a clear understanding of the flow of business in hotel. Guest Cycle also represents a systematic approach to front office operations

Pre - Arrival

The Guest  chooses a hotel during the pre- arrival stage of the guest cycle. Choice of the guest can be affected by many factors, including previous experiences with the hotel, advertisement, word of mouth referral by friends and colleagues, location, corporate, travel agent booking, hotel name, hotel loyalty program member etc.

The guest's decision of making the reservation can also be effected by the ease of making the reservation and the way reservation agent interacted and described the facility of the hotel like room type, room rate, recreational facilities and other attractions near the hotels  etc.

We can certainly call the reservation area as the sales office for non-corporate or group bookings. Its employees should be sales orientated and present positive, strong image of the hotel.

If a reservation can be accepted, the reservation agent create a reservation on the hotel management software. The creation of this reservation record starts the hotel guest cycle. This reservation contains details of guest specific request which will help the hotel to provide the guest with personalized service during his stay.

The details which is collected during the reservation also helps the hotel to complete pre-registration activities like assign room according to guest request, room rate to be charged to the guest folio during the course of stay etc.

Although the reservation details helps in providing guests with anticipatory service the primary objective of making the reservation is to make sure that room will be available when he arrives to the hotel.

2. Arrival

The arrival stage of the guest cycle includes registration and room assignment process. After the guest arrives, he or she establishes a business relationship with the hotel through front office. It is the front office staff responsibility to clarify any query of the guest especially the details of room rate of packages he /she  is booked on.

Front office staff should determine the guest's reservation status before beginning the check-in / registration process. Guest with reservation and guest without reservation commonly known as Walk-in's also provides a opportunity of business for front desk staff.

A Registration card or Reg. card is printed and completed at the time of check in, which will help the front desk to collect essential information. The reg. card should contain details like billing instructions,reservation details, number of adults and children occupying, address, passport and visa for foreign nationals, full address, personal details and credit card details. Because the guest and hotel gains certain legal benefits it is mandatory to get guest signature on the registration card.

The registration process is complete once a method of payment and the guest's departure date have been confirmed and duly signed by the guest. The guest may be given a room key and  direction to the room or escorted by the guest service associate or guest service manager .

When the guest checks-in to the room the occupancy stage of the guest cycle begins.

3. Occupancy

The manner in which the front office staff represents the hotel is important during the occupancy stage.

As the main contact  centre for hotel activity, the front office is responsible for coordinating guest requests. Among those providing information and supplies to the guests.

Front desk should take extra care to respond to the guest on a timely and accurate manner. The main focus of the front desk staff is to provide anticipatory service and to meet or exceed the guests expectations. This will encourage the guest to repeat to the hotel.

Security is also a main important concern during occupancy of the guest. Issues like protection of funds and valuables are among those. The front desk should also follow the hotel standard operating procedure for handling the hotel and guest keys, property surveillance, safe deposit boxes, guests personal property, and emergencies are also important.

A variety of charges restaurant charges, telephone, internet, travel desk etc. during the occupancy stage affect guest  and hotel account. Most of these charges will be posted to the guest account according to front office posting procedures. And also in most cases the Room charges is the single largest charge on the guest folio.

Other front office financial tasks during the occupancy stage is to verify the charges posted to the guest account and checking guest accounts against the credit limit.

4. Departure

Guest services and guest accounting aspects of the guest cycle are completed during the cycle's fourth and final phase ie departure.

At Departure the guest vacates the room, receives the accurate statement of the settled accounts, returns the room keys and leaves the hotel. Once the guest has checked out, front office updates the rooms availability status and notifies the housekeeping department. ( For hotels using Property management software the status of the room is updated automatically ).

At this stage front office also collect the feedback of the guest experience in the hotels by handing over the guest feedback form.

What is an occupancy report in hotels?

The night auditor prepares the daily operations report, a summary of the day's business from which the general manager and different department heads can review revenues, receivables, operating statistics, and front office cash receipts and disbursements; departmental reports on revenue and expenditures and a credit report, which lists guest accounts remaining unpaid three days after billing, and any unusually large guest charges or balances. This report contains a summary of a hotel's financial activities during a 24 hour period. The daily operations report provides a means of reconciling cash, bank account revenue, and accounts receivable. The report also serves as a posting reference for various accounting journals and provides important data that must be input to link front and back office computer functions. Also included in the daily operations report are rooms statistics and occupancy ratios and comments and observations from the accounting staff. For example, statistics about the number of guests using the hotel's valet parking services take on added significance when remarks indicate that valet sales are down while occupancy is up. The front office manager may assume that the front office staff is not properly promoting available guest valet parking services. Typically information provided by the daily operations report is not restricted to the front office manager or hotel general manager. Copies of the daily operations report are generally distributed to all department and division managers in the hotel.