Front Office Department

1.1 Sections and layout of Front Office
1.2 Organizational chart of front office department (small,
medium and large hotels)
1.3 Duties and responsibilities of various staff
1.4 Attributes of front office personnel
1.5 Co-ordination of front office with other departments of
the hotel
1.6 Equipments used (Manual and Automated)

Sections of Front Office Department
 The front office department of a hotel comprises of various
sections. Depending on the size of the hotels, the sections
may vary. In small or medium sized hotels the sections may
be merged and handled accordingly. The following are the
sections of the front office department :-
1. Reservation Section is responsible for booking of rooms in
advance. It is responsible for the receiving of the room
requests, reservation analyzing and documentation of the
room requests received.
2. Front Desk Section is responsible for receiving the guest,
registering of the guest, assigning of room and room keys.
3Prepared by - Syed Rana Safiuddin, MGM-IHM

Cont…
3. Bell Desk is mainly responsible for luggage handling of the
guests. It consists of group of uniformed staff for guest
services.
4. Travel Desk Section handles the transportation facility of
the hotel guest. It assists in the booking of air tickets, hiring
of the car and other transportation facilities. It also arranges /
organizes city tours, sight seeing tours to the guests on
request.
5. Business Centre's serve the guests with laptops, internet,
mobiles, facsimile, LCD projectors, and photocopier and also
on request secretarial facilities. This is the latest addition in
the large and medium sized hotels, in line with the electronic
era.

Cont…
6. Concierge Section provides information about the hotel,
its services and amenities, city, town, country, travel and
transport, banks etc. They can also handle the guest luggage
and bags if the hotel does not have the bell desk section. The
receiving and distribution of mail and message, packets,
news papers and magazines in the early mornings to guest
room are also attended to. In addition, it may also handle the
hiring of the car and booking of air tickets and other
transportation facilities if there is no travel desk in the hotel.
7. Cashiering Section is responsible for maintaining and
recording guest accounts and bills and folio of guest and
either cash or credit settlement of guest folios at the time of
departure.
8. Communication and Telephone Section handles the
guest telephones and messages, both incoming and out
going of the guest. 5
Prepared by - Syed Rana Safiuddin, MGM-IHM

Layout of Front Office Department
 As the front office is the entry and exit point for a guest, the
main entrance and approach play a very important role in the
selection of hotel for a guest. A guest entering a hotel does so
through the main entrance which leads to the reception area
of the hotel which is also called the lobby of the hotel.
 The lobby is elegantly designed to accommodate the front
office staffs and for the smooth service to the guests. Since
the lobby usually serves as a meeting or gathering area for
guests and their visitors it should be well planned and
furnished to give a best intuition. The lobby of the hotel
includes the general circulation and waiting area which leads
to check-in, information, cashiers counter, bell desk, travel
desk, cloak rooms etc.. 6Prepared by - Syed Rana Safiuddin, MGM-IHM

 Below picture shows a typical layout of a lobby. The layout
may vary from hotel to hotel. Some hotel may even have a
coffee shop, restaurant and shopping arcade.
7

Organizational chart of front office
department (small, medium and large hotels)

10

Duties and responsibilities of
various staff
a. Front Office Manager
• He is the head of the department.
• He ensures the smooth running of the department
• He sees to it that his staff reports to duty in time and in proper uniform.
• He ensures that courteous and personalized service is given to the guests by his staff.
• He deals with front office correspondence on reservations, enquiries, room booking etc.
• He is responsible for the up keep of the front desk, lobby manager’s desk and their
equipment.
• He deals with the complaints against his staff and other complaints of the Guests.
• Participants in the selection of F O Personnel
• Conducts regularly scheduled meeting of F O Personnel.
b. Lobby Manager
• He ensures that all rooms are blocked as per reservation requests
• He keeps a check on room position
• He instructs the airport representatives regarding the list of arrivals to be met.
• He checks pre-registration cards
• He also checks housekeeping discrepancy report
• He ensures that guest requests and complaints are followed up
• He follows up on group and crew movement
• He takes actions for all unusual events in the lobby like fire, accidents, etc.
• He ensures the smooth running of the lobby.
• He sends “C” Forms to the FRRO. 11

c. Reception Supervisor
• To train all front office assistants on the job
• To make the duty roster for the staff
• To check the shift in-charge’s list on a daily basis
• To check the next day’s arrival list and to brief the staff accordingly
• He makes the requisition for the stationery required for the Front Office ensures the
smooth running of the reception
• Welcomes VIP guests
• Attends to guest complaints
• Assists the reception staff.
• Maintains records of the reception
d. Reception Assistant
• To answer the queries of the guest to their satisfaction and to provide information
• To promptly register guests and to assign rooms to them
• To update the room rack regularly
• To complete pre-registration formalities for VIPs
• To execute government formalities regarding foreigners
• To prepare room reports and occupancy statistics
• Send messages to the guests
• To print the arrival list for the next day.

e. Reception Shift in-charge
• Performs the tasks of reception assistant
• Supervises and checks the entire Shift Operation
• Handles guest complaints
• Checks all the reports before the end of the shift
• Airline crew blocking and group blocking
f. Reservation Supervisor
• To help out Reservation Assistant in calls, courses and feeding reservation information.
• To supervise the staff under her and impart training
• To monitor all new movements
• To follow up on billing instructions and other special requests
• To check on credit facilities to Companies, discount policies and discounts offered to
various companies.
• Co-ordination with Reception, Information, Sales and Marketing Departments and Tour
Operator.
• Up-to-date information of the position of the house for the day and the next three days.
• She draws up a weekly, monthly and quarterly forecast
• Monitors VIP movements and informs all concerned
• Monitors house status and keep Front Office Manager informed of sold out dates.
• Deals with correspondence, vouchers, exchange orders, deposits, refund of deposits and
actions thereon.
• She handles the group and conference booking. 13

g. Reservation Assistant
• To update regularly the reservation chart and computer
• To properly and courteously handle all reservation requests
• To keep all reservations correspondence up to date
• To handle amendments and cancellation of reservation.
h. Senior Bell Captain
• He controls the movements of Bell Captains and Bell Boys
• He briefs the Bell Boy and ensures that they are always well groomed
• Takes stock of the luggage, parcels and any other material
• Has thorough knowledge of the hotel, shops, airline offices, executive offices etc.
• Thorough procedure on arrival and departure
• To carry out different errands for the guests
• Responsible for the proper distribution of newspapers
• Keeping stock of the equipments, trolleys and ensuring that they are in good
working order
• Vigilant and alert on duty
• To initiate action against guests having scanty baggage
• To assist in crew and group wakeup call procedures

i. Bell Boy
• Take the baggage front the porch to the room
• Escort the guest to the rooms on arrival
• Place the baggage in the room
• Explain the operation of light switches and air conditioning control to the guests.
• Bring the baggage down in case of departures.
• Checks the room to ensure that the guest has not left any articles in the room
• Obtain the clearance from Front Office Cashier on the errand card regarding the
bill.
• Check that mail and messages are timely distributed to the guests.
j. Front Office Cashier
• Operates front office posting equipment
• Completes cashier pre-shift supply checklist
• Completes guest check in procedures
• Post charges to guest account
• Handle paid-outs
• Completes guest check-out procedures
• Settles guest account
• Makes account adjustments
15

k. Night Auditor
• He posts room charges and taxes to guest accounts
• Processes guest charge vouchers and credit card vouchers transfers
charges and deposits to master accounts.
• Verifies all account postings and balances a summary of cash, check and
credit card activities
• Summarizes results of operations for management knows how to operate
position machines, typewriters and Front Office equipments.
• Understands and knows how to perform check-in and check-out
procedures
• Handle errands requested by guests and Front Office staff
• Handle baggage of guests when they are shifting to another room
• Distribute news papers age (with the use of Page Board) guests in the
lobby.
• He reports about scanty baggage to the bell captain issues postage stamps
against cash. 16Prepared by - Syed Rana Safiuddin, MGM-IHM

Attributes of front office personnel
17

18

19

Co-ordination of front office with
other departments of the hotel
 The front office staff interacts with all departments of the
hotel, including marketing and sales, housekeeping, food
and beverage, banquet, controller, maintenance, security,
and human resources.
20

Co-ordination with Marketing and Sales Department -
 The marketing and sales department relies on the front office
to provide data on guest histories, details concerning each
guest's visit. Some of the information gathered is based on
zip code, frequency of visits, corporate affiliation, special
needs, and reservations for sleeping rooms.
Co-ordination with Housekeeping Department -
 It is very important to have coordination between Front
Office and Housekeeping. The reception must have control
over the status of rooms in good order to be offered to the
guests. The Housekeeping has the responsibility to keep
room in clean and hygienically proper shape.

Co-ordination with Engineering Department -
 There is a need to have some staff round the clock from the
Engineering department to maintain and upkeep the
facilities and equipment in order. If the equipments or
facilities at the guest room does not function, the guest
demands a replacement of room and the room get out of
order for offer and the hotel looses revenue from sale of such
rooms.
Co-ordination with Human Resources Department –
 The HR department coordinates with the Front Office in
cases of misconducts on part of employees of the hotel as per
the SOP

Equipments used (Manual and
Automated)

 NON AUTOMATED EQUIPMENTS -
1. Room Rack: It is an array of metal file pockets designed to hold room rack slips
(registration records) that display guest and room status information. One
glance at the room rack will immediately inform front desk agent of the
occupancy and housekeeping status of all rooms. Front desk agent normally use
this information to match available rooms with guest needs during the
registration process.
2. Key Rack: It is an array of numbered compartments used to store guest room
keys.
3. Reservation Rack: A series of pigeonholes where cards are put to show which
room have been booked.
4. Information Rack: It normally consist of aluminum slots designed to hold
guest information slips which consist of guest name and room number. It is use
to assist front office employees with proper routing of telephones calls and
mails.
5. Folio Tray: It is a bucket where the guest folio are stored and arranged by guest
room number. Ones these accounts are settled, the folio are moved to
permanent storage location.
6. Voucher Rack: It is a container storing vouchers for future reference and
verifications during the night audit. 24

 SEMI AUTOMATED EQUIPMENTS –
1. Telephone Equipments: It consist of call accounting
system, automatic call dispensing, fax machine ,call
detection and wake up calls.
2. Credit Card Imprinters: Imprinters presses a credit card
voucher against a guest credit card.
3. Magnetic Strip Reader: It reads data magnetically encoded
and stored on the magnetic tape strip on credit card.
4. Cash Register: is a mechanical or electronic device for
registering and calculating transactions. It is usually
attached to a drawer for storing cash and other valuables.
The cash register is also usually attached to a printer, that
can print out receipts for record keeping purposes.

 AUTOMATED EQUIPMENTS –
1. Security Monitor: CCTV camera for security personnel to
monitor certain areas of hotel.
2. Multizone Clocks: Indicators of the time at different time zones
across world.
3.Computers: Computers are the greatest innovation of the
mankind. It is the front office personnel most useful
equipments. It helps in typing of mails, printing receipts ,letters,
surfing net. It also helps in storing information regarding guest.
4. EDC: Electronic Data Cash helps in validating or scrutinize the
authenticity of the credit card given by the guest in time of
check in and check out.

P r e p a r e d b y –
S y e d R a n a S a f i u d d i n
A s s i s t a n t P r o f e s s o r,
M G M - I H M ,
M G M U n i v e r s i t y , A u r a n g a b a d .
27

Front Office Department

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