The document discusses various equipment used in hotel front offices, including room racks, key racks, reservation racks, folio trays, and safety equipment. Room racks display guest and room status information. Key racks store guestroom keys. Reservation racks arrange reservation cards by arrival date. Folio trays store guest billing folders. Safety equipment maintains security, such as smoke detectors, fire extinguishers, and sprinkler systems. Front office equipment helps ensure smooth hotel operations and guest service.

1. Chapter 7
Front Office Equipments
Chapter 7 – Front Office Equipments 1

2. Learning Objective
To learn
Various types of equipments used in front office
Equipments that make the hotel operations easy
and systematic
Methods to handling of the office equipments
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Chapter 7 – Front Office Equipments

3. Room Rack
• The room rack are the equipments where registration
records are inserted to serve as room rack slips
• Considered as most important piece of front office
equipment
• Array of metal file pockets designed to hold room rack
slips that display guest and room status information
• When key slots are added to the room rack, it can
serve as a combination room and key rack
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Chapter 7 – Front Office Equipments

4. Room Rack
• One glance at the room rack should immediately
inform the front desk agent of the occupancy and
housekeeping status of all rooms
• Front desk agents normally use this information to
match available rooms with guests needs during the
registration process
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Chapter 7 – Front Office Equipments

5. Key Rack
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Chapter 7 – Front Office Equipments

6. Key Rack
• These are sets of racks were generally kept at the
front desk in earlier day
• A key rack is an array of numbered compartments
used to store guestroom keys
• Key racks are often placed in front desk drawers to
ensure the safety and security of guests
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Chapter 7 – Front Office Equipments

7. Key Rack
• A combination of mail, message and key rack can be
either a free-standing wall unit or an under the
counter row of apartments
• When the mail and message compartments of the
rack are open from both sides, telephone operators
and front desk agents
• Operators who record telephone messages for guests
can insert them into the rack from the back side; front
desk agents can retrieve the messages from the front
side
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Chapter 7 – Front Office Equipments

8. Reservation Racks
• A special board or series of pigeonholes where cards
are put to show which room have been booked
• Front office uses both two types of reservation racks
• In an advance reservation rack, reservation rack
slops or registration cards are arranged by the guest
scheduled dates of arrival and with each day’s
grouping
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Chapter 7 – Front Office Equipments

9. Reservation Racks
• A current reservation rack is portable subset of the
advance reservation rack
• The current reservation rack is used by the front desk
agents to assist in processing guests during
registration
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Chapter 7 – Front Office Equipments

10. Information Rack
• An information rack is an index of in-house guests, by
both last name and room number
• An information rack is commonly use to assist front
office employees with proper routing of telephone
calls, mails
• The information rack normally consists of aluminium
slots designed to hold guest information slips
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Chapter 7 – Front Office Equipments

11. Folio Trays
• Folio tray or folio bucket is where the guest folios are
stored and arranged by guestroom numbers
• Guest folios remain in the tray throughout the
occupancy stage of the guest cycle, except when they
are used in posting transactions
• A second folio tray is normally located in the hotel’s
accounting office
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Chapter 7 – Front Office Equipments

12. Folio Trays
• This tray contains the folios of departed guests being
directly-billed or of guests who paid by credit card
• Once these accounts are settles, the folios are moved
to permanent storage location
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Chapter 7 – Front Office Equipments

13. Account Posting Machine
• An electromechanical or
electronic device use in
semi-automated hotels
• An account posting
machine is used to post,
monitor, and balance
charges and credits to
guest accounts
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Chapter 7 – Front Office Equipments

14. Other Equipments
• Voucher rack – it is a container for storing vouchers
for future reference and verification during the night
audit
• Cash register – used to record to cash transactions
and maintain cash balances
• Telephone equipment – telephone equipments
consists of call accounting systems, automatic call
dispensing, telephone / room status system, fax
machine and call detection
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Chapter 7 – Front Office Equipments

15. Other Equipments
• Credit card imprinter – Imprinter presses a credit
card voucher against a guest’s credit card
• Magnetic strip reader – a magnetic strip reader,
reads data magnetically encoded and stored on the
magnetic tape strip on credit card
• Time stamp – Time stamp recording is important for
establishment of chronology of events
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Chapter 7 – Front Office Equipments

16. Other Equipments
• Security Monitor – CCTV cameras for security
personnel to monitor certain areas of hotel
• Wake-up devices – used by telephone operators to
place wake-up calls
• Multi-zone clock – indicators of the time at different
time zones across world
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Chapter 7 – Front Office Equipments

17. Other Equipments
• Wi-fi ticket – provides user id and password to guest
to access the internet facility of the hotel
• Card imprinting machine – PVC cards enabling the
customers to make it easy to book for them
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Chapter 7 – Front Office Equipments

18. Safety Equipments
Safety equipments used in hotel – the basic safety
equipments include
• Smoke detectors – to detect smoke in case of fire as
a preventive measure
• Fire extinguishers – meant to involve various
classes fires
• Carbon monoxide detectors – important to detect
as the gas is invisible and dangerous
• Sprinkler systems – equipments to sprinkler water in
case of fire 18
Chapter 7 – Front Office Equipments

19. Safety Equipments
Smoke detectors –
To detect smoke in case of fire as a preventive
measure
Some detectors have ability to report heat build up
prior to evidence of smoke or flame
Some of the detectors respond only to the smoke
and other products of combustion
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Chapter 7 – Front Office Equipments

20. Safety Equipments
Smoke detectors –
Single-station hard wired smoke detectors require
that the unit be on electric wiring as opposed to the
battery power
An automated system integrated all smoke
detectors in each location
Many local jurisdictions enacted local regulations
requiring fully automated smoke detector systems
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Chapter 7 – Front Office Equipments

21. Safety Equipments
Fire Extinguishers-
Four classes of fires that a lodging property should be
prepared for
• Class A – Involves ordinary combustibles
• Class B – Involve flammable liquids
• Class C – Involve electrical equipment
• Class D – Involve cooking oils and fats
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Chapter 7 – Front Office Equipments

22. Safety Equipments
Carbon Monoxide Detectors
• Carbon monoxide is a dangerous by-product of a
malfunctioning water heater, kerosene heater, coal
boiler and any other wood
• Carbon monoxide is invisible and has no smell, it
cannot be detected by natural means
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Chapter 7 – Front Office Equipments

23. Safety Equipments
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Chapter 7 – Front Office Equipments
Sprinkler Systems
• Sprinkler systems are now mandated in an
establishments four stories or higher
• Most jurisdictions now require full sprinkler in the new
constructions of any commercial property

24. Accident Prevention Signs
Hotel also uses various signs to prevent accidents-
• Danger signs – which indicate the immediate
dangers ahead
• Caution signs – used to warn against potential
hazards
• Safety instruction signs – use where need for
general instructions relative to safety measures
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Chapter 7 – Front Office Equipments

25. Summary
• The Front office department of a hotel comprises of
the sections like Reservation, Front Desk, Bell desk,
Travel desk, Concierge etc
• The Front office manager must be a skilled planner
who channelizes the various resources
• The Front desk agent is the first person a guests sees
on entering the hotel and the last person the guest
sees on leaving
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Chapter 7 – Front Office Equipments

26. Summary
• The front office is elegantly designed to
accommodate the staff and for the smooth service to
the guests
• Number of front office equipments ensure an effective
hospitality of the guest
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Chapter 7 – Front Office Equipments