how guest mails and messages are handled in hotels

1. Handling guest mails and
messages in hotels

2. • Mail handling is very important activity of the
front desk and the way the mail is handled shows
the efficiency and attitude of the hotel staff.
• “Mail handling” term covers up both incoming
and outgoing mail.
Incoming mail
• Incoming mail may be received by the bell desk
or by the informationist as per hotel policy.
• First step involved is that mail is sorted ,arranged
alphabetically and put separately i.e.
• mail for guest and mail for hotel.
• Mail is date and time stamped

3.  Incoming guest mail
Sorted into 3 categories i.e. mail for
(i)In-house guest mail handling:
Guest currently staying in the hotel are called “In-
house” or “Present Guests”. In case the guest is in the
hotel then the mail for such guests is either sent to the
room with the Bell Boys or handed over to the guests in
person when they come to the front desk.
If guest may go out his room without leaving the key
on the counter, such cases mail advise slip is put on the
key knob of the door so that if he goes to the room
directly he would know about the mail which hotel has
received in his absence.

4. (ii) Guest who have already checked out
Mail of the checked out guest is checked with
the forwarding instruction and mail is
forwarded according to the instruction left by
the checkout guest and appropriate entries are
made on the mail forwarding address slip.

5. (iii)Guest who have not yet arrived
• Mail of such guests is marked with the date of arrival
and kept in ‘hold mail’ rack.
• Information is then marked on advance reservation
slip/movement list or is fed in computer.
• The night before the arrival date the expected arrival
guest mail, along with reservation records is sent to front
desk
• When guest arrives it is handed over to him/her at the
time of registration
• The awaited mail is retained for a month only, after the
expiry of that date, it is sent back to sender.
• A record is maintained by hotels at the time of receiving
mails such as parcels letters etc , it should be delivered
urgently to the guest and acknowledgment taken.
• A proper record of receiving hand then distribution of
such mail must be maintained

6.  Mail for hotel and mail concerning the hotel
Classified into two heads
• Mail for staff : Mail for junior staff is sent to the
time office where the staff coming on duty or
going off duty is delivered the mail.
• Mail concerning management of hotel and senior
staff: Mail for senior staff is sent to their office
through bellboys. Mail concerning the various
departments of hotel such as accounts, personnel
food and beverages, reservation etc is sent to
concerned dept.

7. Outgoing mail
• 2 types
(i)In-house guest : guest wishes to send a mail
through front office, is done by the senior bell
captain who weighs it, put appropriate value
stamps on it and post it on behalf of the guest.
A V.P.O (visitors paid out)voucher is made for the
same and guest signatures are obtained on it
finally posted in guest folio. For registered or
recorded mail also the same procedure is followed.
Some hotels use postage book to keep the account
of postage used for guest.

8. (ii) Hotel staff mail
• Hotel staff is usually not encouraged to send
the mail through the hotel & is required to
send the mail on their own
• Any mail can be sent out of the various dept.
of hotel & is sent by the dept. directly such as
accounts , food and beverage and reservation
etc.

9. Message Handling
• Receiving messages for the in-house guests in
their absence ,recording them and
communicating them to guests as soon as
possible by front office.
• Usually guest goes out of his/her room would
leave room key at the counter ,sometimes guest
may leave his/her whereabouts at the reception
counter through a yellow card also called as a
locator/location form/whereabouts card.

10. • Incase a phone call comes or visitor comes to a
hotel to see the guest ,the receptionist will
confirm from the key and mail rack whether the
guest is in room or not, also look for location
form left by guest.
• Suppose in-house guest leaves location form
indicating he/she is in dinning hall/bar etc.. Then
the paging in that particular area will be done
either by public address system or traditional
page board system
• Suppose in house guest has not left but has
returned the room key at the counter in such
cases visitor would be asked to leave message for
the in house guest
• A message slip is prepared and is filled in by the
visitor.

11. • Hotels prepare message slip is triplicate
• Original slip is kept in the key and mail rack in an
envelope and is delivered to guest
• First copy is slipped to the room
• Second copy remains in message book as reference copy.
• Incase guest have not left location form nor the room
key such cases same procedure is followed but in
addition either an attention card or mail and message
advise slip is put on the door knob of the room or fed
into computer and guest may view it on screen of the tv
in his room
• Similar system is followed in case of telephone message,
here the message received by the receptionist is
immediately pass on the same information to the
telephone dept. so that call may be diverted to message
centre without delay .

12. Thank you