front office

The front office or reception is an area where visitors arrive and first encounter a staff at a place of business. Front office staff will deal with whatever question the visitor has, and put them in contact with a relevant person at the company. Broadly speaking, the front office includes roles that affect the revenues of the business. The term front office is in contrast to the term back office which refers to a company's operations, personnel, accounting, payroll and financial departments which do not interact directly with customers.

The Guest Cycle in hotel

1. 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.

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.

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.

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 ).