1. THE STRUCTURES OF THE HOTEL
INDUSTRY
CLODGING
From Check-In, Check-out: Managing Hotel Operations
M. Aldana | SHTM Faculty
2. THE ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE
• A wide range of skills is needed to operate large
hotels.
• Each property uses its human resource, its,
organization, to achieve the most efficient and
profitable design.
• The workforce is separated into specialized
departments. Each entrusted with its share of duties.
Good management minimizes the friction that
invariably arises among different departments and
different interests.
• Poor performance in one unit undermines the efforts
of all.
• Coordinating the whole, unifying the specialties, and
directing the joint efforts is the job of the General
3. OWNERSHIP
• Ownership may rest with an individual, a partnership, a joint venture, or
a public corporation.
Ownership
Interests
General Manager
4. GENERAL MANAGER
• Management titles vary, often based
on size. Large chains use corporate
titles similar to other businesses: CEO
(Chief Executive Officer), CFO (Chief
Financial Officer), COO (Chief
Operating Officer).
• General Manager (GM or The GM)
is the title at the unit level, the
operating hotel.
• If the GM is also an executive of the
company that owns either the
management contract or the hotel,
the title might be President and
General Manager.
• Owner-manager is used when the
GM actually owns the hotel, as do
many small, privately held operations.
5. GENERAL MANAGER
• The Gm deals directly with ownership
or through the CEO or the COO or
indirectly through layers of corporate
titles.
• Standing alone, the GM is simply the
employee most responsible to
whatever ownership structure is in
place.
• The GM is responsible for all that
happens in every department.
• To help the GM, there may be an
executive assistant manager.
• Like the GM, he/she has responsibility
over the entire organization.
Ownership
Interests
General Manager
Executive Assistant
Manager
6. GENERAL MANAGER
• Hotel executives work “around the
clock” because hotels never close.
7/24/365 places great demand on
time and energy of hotel executives.
• Their work week is open ended.
• Outsiders believe the GMs job to be
all about meeting celebrities and
enjoying free dinners and drinks.
• Work weeks of 60-plus hours wreak
havoc with marriage and family,
reduce productivity, and make an
evening out just more work.
7. STRENGTH AND SALARIES
• Studies point out the importance of a
manager’s people skills.
• That means, in part, developing the
social and communication arts
required of an important community
person. These skills are equally critical
to managing a hotel’s human
resources.
• Incentive bonuses and rewards are
techniques fro supplementing
employee wages including GMs.
Executive incentives and bonuses
range from 20% to 40% of annual
income.
• GM salaries are dependent on several
criteria: size of hotel, ADR the
manager delivers, and the revenue of
the property.
8. SUPPORT DEPARTMENTS
• Managers are supported with experts in law,
employment, environment, taxes, and technology.
• Some of these specialists are available only at
organizational levels higher than the operating hotel.
Others are part of the property’s organizational chart.
• If the general manager carries a corporate title so
may the support staff: e.g. vice president of
marketing, human resources, etc. rather than directors
of marketing, or human resources. Etc.
GM
Exec. Asst.
Mngr
Manager of
Information
Technology
Director of
Marketing (Sales)
Controller
(Accounting)
Director of Human
Resources (Personnel)
Legal Counsel
9. THE FOOD AND BEVERAGE
DEPARTMENT
• Unlike the advisory nature of the support staff, the
Food and Beverage Manager has direct operating
(line) responsibilities.
• F&B is one of the hotel’s two operating
departments.
• The importance of F&B is waning industry wide.
Many hotels have no such department. The
structure of the industry has changed because
many hotels either offer no meals or include one
meal, breakfast, within the room rate.
GM
Exec. Asst.
Mngr
F&B Manager
10. THE HOTEL (OR RESIDENT) MANAGER
• The hotel manager, also called the house manager
or the resident manager, is the front-of-the-house
counterpart to the food and beverage manager.
• All operating departments (other than F&B) reports
to this person.
GM
Exec. Asst.
Mngr
Resident (Hotel)
Manager
11. HOUSEKEEPING
• Responsibility for the delivery of the hotel’s basic
product, a clean room, rests unconditionally with
housekeeping.
• Housekeepers work in isolation; servicing guest
rooms and cleaning public space.
• Guest room attendants or floor
housekeepers are among the hotel’s
least paid employees. Although tips
supplement this.
• This is due to the absence of face-to-
face contact. This job usually attracts
the less educated, and those with
limited knowledge in English.
12. ORGANIZATION OF THE HKPG DEPT.
• The manager of the housekeeping
department is called the
housekeeper, Working
Housekeeper, is used if this
supervisor also cleans rooms. Large
hotels favor executive housekeeper.
• The position may or may not be
responsible for:
• Laundry and valet
• Swimming pools, outdoor ponds,
and/or water attractions
• Guest-room designs and décor
• Purchasing
• Functions that might be engineering’s
like furniture repair
GM
Exec. Asst.
Mngr
Resident (Hotel)
Manager
Exec.
Housekeeper
13. DUTIES
• Is charged with the general
cleanliness of guest rooms, corridors,
and public places such as lobbies and
restrooms.
• Attendants may also service employee
locker rooms, bathhouses, and spas.
Housekeeping in F&B is as the
steward
• Guest room attendants service 12-18
rooms per day, taking about 30
minutes per room. (some hotels have
2 person teams)
• Also responsible for turndowns –
preparing bed at night
14. DUTIES
• Working closely with security, it
maintains lost-and-found
• Counting and weighing linens
• Linen repair is handled by a
seamstress working in the linen room
• Housekeeping’s coordination with the
front desk is essential in the sale of
rooms.
• A floor supervisor or floor
housekeeper inspects and approves
rooms recently vacated and cleaned
by the guest-room attendants.
15. SECURITY
• At one time, security was the eyes and
ears of bellpersons, elevator and
telephone operators, and floor room
clerks.
• These jobs disappeared as street
crimes entered the hotel, as liability
claims and insurance costs rose,
security departments grew in size and
importance.
• Security is charged with the
protection of persons, both guests
and staff, and of property, both
guests’ and hotel’s.
• Physical upgrades: peep holes,
electronic locks, public-address
systems, perimeter lighting, smoke
alarms, sprinkler systems, etc.
• CCTV (closed-circuit television)
GM
Exec. Asst.
Mngr
Resident (Hotel)
Manager
Director of
Security
16. THE ROOMS MANAGER
• The Rooms manager oversees four
departments: reservations, uniformed
services, concierge, and telephones.
GM
Exec. Asst.
Mngr
Resident (Hotel)
Manager
Rooms Manager
17. ROOM RESERVATIONS
• Prospective guests request
accommodations through the
reservations department.
• Inquiries are received, processed, and
confirmed by the department under
the supervision of the reservations
manager.
• Reservations arrive by letter, fax,
email, twitter, and occasionally in
person, across the front desk.
• Most come by telephone or via
internet
GM
Exec. Asst.
Mngr
Resident (Hotel)
Manager
Rooms Manager
Reservations
Manager
18. UNIFORMED SERVICES
• The ranks of the service department
(or uniformed department, or bell
department) have been waning.
• At one time, there were baggage
porters, pages, transportation clerks,
and operators for both guests and
service elevators.
• What remains is organized around a
few bellpersons and an occasional
door attendant.
• The manager of the service
department has that very title:
manager of services or
superintendent of services, or bell
captain.
GM
Exec. Asst.
Mngr
Resident (Hotel)
Manager
Rooms Manager
Manager of
Services
19. CONCIERGE
• Comes from the Latin word con
servus meaning “with service”
• The European version acts as door
attendant, keeper of keys, porter, and
eventually provider of services.
• The US version the lobby concierge
provides a variety of information and
personal services
GM
Exec. Asst.
Mngr
Resident (Hotel)
Manager
Rooms Manager
Concierge
20. TELEPHONE DEPARTMENT
• Supervising the few employees left at
the telephone department is the chief
operator or telephone supervisor.
• Former duties include:
• Charge operator (interfaces telephone
company, the hotel, and the guest
folio)
• Message operator (hand transcribes
or types messages for guests)
• Alarm clocks (wake-up calls)
GM
Exec. Asst.
Mngr
Resident (Hotel)
Manager
Rooms Manager
Chief Telephone
Operator
21. GUEST SERVICES
• Reporting to the rooms manager is
the manager of guest services, once
called the front-office manager.
• Room clerks now named as guest-
service agents
• Functionally, it is the face of the hotel,
the nerve center of guest activity
that’s why it is known as the “hub and
heart” of the hotel.
• Through it flows communications with
every department.
GM
Exec. Asst.
Mngr
Resident (Hotel)
Manager
Rooms Manager
Manager of
Guest Services
Guest-service
Agents
