Four Seasons San Francisco

A skyscraper topped off in 2001, this luxury hotel has rooms with floor-to-ceiling windows displaying stunningly beautiful cityscape and bay views. It's well located for business travelers, with nearly all the major financial district building within walking distance, as well as pleasure travelers.

Within a few blocks are museums, like the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, shopping around Union Square, eating in Chinatown, and attractions like the Old Mint. A three-minute walk down Market Street is the terminus for the Powell Street cable car line that takes visitors to Fisherman's Wharf.

Default: The owners, Millenium Partners, defaulted on the hotel's $90 million loan to force a renegotiation in the terms of the note, according to John Fox, a vice president with PKF Consulting, an advisor to the hotel industry. The operations of the hotel have been unaffected.

Road Trips, Family Visits the New Trend in American Vacations

The great American road trip is back. After years of extravagant, keep-up-with-the-Jones' trips, more people are strapping down and simplifying their vacations because of the economy.
With the holiday weekend approaching, a new Mintel survey reveals over six in 10 people drove their own car-instead of flying-to their last vacation destination. And they didn't go anywhere overly glamorous: 62% said they spent recent vacations with family and friends. Only 30% went to beaches and 30% visited cities. In 2007 when the economy was stronger, fewer people reported vacationing with family and friends (56%), while a full 42% went to cities.

Once at vacation destinations, two in five people (42%) said they lodged with friends or relatives. Just over half (51%) stayed in a hotel, but that pales in comparison to the 80% that said they stayed in hotels in 2007. Mintel's recent survey also reveals people vacationing closer to home (57%), taking shorter trips (56%) and utilizing cheaper forms of transportation (64%) because of the economic downturn.

'The recession is undoubtedly making more Americans shop aggressively for travel deals and cut corners,' states Chris Haack, senior analyst at Mintel. 'As people try to save money, we see a rising trend towards simpler, more 'homespun' vacations. We've even seen an increase in zoo and local theme park attendance. People can justify shorter trips with fewer excesses, as long as they still have the opportunity to relax and have fun.'

Mintel's survey points to relaxation as the number one goal of vacationers: nearly three in four (72%) said they consider being able to relax completely as an essential vacation element. On the contrary, only one in three (34%) rank a 'high standard of accommodation and facilities' as essential to their enjoyment.

In the past 12 months, 40% of survey respondents didn't travel domestically; many cited financial reasons.

source: http://www.hotelnewsresource.com

Mail, Massages, and Information Management in Hotel

In recent years, the handling of mail by large hotels has diminished some-what because the average length of a guest’s stay ahs become shorter, however, arrival time often is still an occasion for the guest to receive mail, in very large hotels, a separate key, mail and massages, which are touted through the front office before arrival, during the guest’s stay, and after departure. In most establishments, however, it is part of the front desk clerk’s general function to handle these tasks.

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The following procedures are suitable for most situations:
1.Incoming mail is routed to the front office manager, who then separates it into guest mail and hotel mail.
2.Guest mail arriving at the desk is time-stamped and sorted as soon as possible.
3.If the guest is registered, the mail is placed in the mail slot and a massage is sent to the guest, either by personal contact or by illuminating the message light on the guest’s room telephone.
4.If the guest has left the hotel, the cancelled registration card or the guest history file is checked to determine the guest’s home address, and the mail is forward accordingly.
5.If the guest holds a reservation but has not yet arrived, the mail is placed in an alphabetically sectioned holding rack, and note is placed on the reservation form.

Special mail should be delivered without delay by a member of the bell staff. If the guest is not in the room, a note is left in the room or the massage light is illuminated.

Hotel Inspection : an important role

To keep guest and employee accidents to a minimum, it is essential to detect unsafe actions and conditions in advance. Hotel Inspector in the housekeeping department perform daily inspections of the guest rooms. While this is not necessary in every department, a department head or a supervisor in each department of the Hotel should perform inspections of their areas at least once a month.

An insection should include the physical structure like floors, doorways whatever it may be related to the physical parts of the hotel. Morever it would be equipment in the laundry and kitchen areas; power tools in the engineering department; cleaning and transportation equipment in the housekeeping department. Observation of any unsafe work practices or poor work habits by employees and conditions of all public areas, such as lobbies, function areas, and so on.

Things to do for Hotel owners

Things to do for Hotel owners
1. housekeeping
2. maintenance
3. front desk
4. supplies
5. accounting
6. sales
7. marketing
8. franchise

Housekeeping:
1. Hire the right Housekeeping Staff
2. Train them on how to do the job focusing on quality
3. They can play a role in improving customer service
4. Teach them how to conserve supplies
5. How to Save on Payroll
6. teach them teamwork
7. Assign KPIs to track their performance
Maintenance:
1. Hire the right person who knows the job
2. Can take outside contractors help for specialized skills
3. take care of stuff that’s broken right away before becomes major issue
4. pool
5. landscaping
6. boiler
7. fire alarms and extinguishers
8. storage of tools and supplies
9. customer service and quality
10. teamwork
Laundry:
1. Train on using right washer codes and dryer minutes
2. conserve on supplies
3. Keep laundry area clean including dryer filters
4. Separate towels, sheets for type of customer
5. front desk can share these duties to save on payroll
6. can be assigned other duties like houseman
7. teamwork
Front desk:
1. Hire only the best as they are dealmakers or barkers
2. customer service customer service
3. phone skills
4. reservations skills
5. walk in skills
6. sales and marketing using front desk agent
7. keep front desk area neat and organized
8. valet laundry, pizza delivery, taxi, security agents go through front desk
9. team work
10. handling security and safety issues
11. concierge listings and neighborhood information/directions
A lot is coming on this topic..

Hospitality and Technology

The slowing economy is affecting the hospitality industry in a number of negative ways but there are still exciting and profound new opportunities in an industry that is likely the second oldest industry on earth and the internet is a perfect medium for selling travel as it brings a vast network of suppliers and a widely dispersed customer pool into a centralized market place. To tell the truth, more travel is being sold over the internet than any other product and in the US its more than any other county. Basically, I can say, globally in the travel marketplace where millions of buyers looking for good travel services and beside the sellers like hotels, airlines, or other companies providing the buyers whatever they are looking for through the Internet technology. Intetrnet is a medium that is up to date, fast and easy to use. How this technology has been totally changing our culture in a way we do business and the behavior of the consumer and their shopping habits. imagine that! although internet technology has given hotel owners so many ways to sell their room, it has become nearly impossible for a smaller hotel.operator to understand, let alone intelligently manage the available channels for room sales. In fact I can say if you have a little but average hotel, many of these channels have an allotment of your rooms. At the same time, new computer-based yield management tools must be used to ensure the optimum balance between direct and discount reservations in order to derive maximum yield from your product.You got an advantage by integrating all these tools into a well-planned and executed program.

participation levels and economies of scale

I have been busy in several activities,working full time and keeping myself busy with my hobby for web design.. by the way,during this economical bad time, Let's see what Mr. Barack Obama will do for US. The hotel managers tend to focus on participation levels and economies of scale. This may result in a hotel being placed under a particular marketing 'umbrella,' and paying its share of the costs for a program that is not suitable.Unfortunately, hotel demand is currently weakening in most markets, room rates are under pressure and hotel profits are declining.all the hotel owners are just in tense. They don’t know what to do in such a bad economy. If they want to sell the hotel they won’t get the money their hotel deserve. As well as Reduced leverage and higher cost of debt will reduce the prospect of new brand competition for a time, but will also lessen the value of an existing hotel asset. Some hotel industry acquired a pretty bad reputation when it started because some of the practices of developers and salespeople were pretty sleazy.The disparity between the goals of the brand manager and the hotel owner is likely to widen and stress levels are apt to increase. The hotel owner needs to understand those differences, and take aggressive action to restore or maintain balance and assure that the management company fully understands and remains focused on the owner's goals. In that way, he will retain the maximum amount of cash flow and investment return possible and preserve more of the asset value. Other hotels of other brands that are in the same market create opportunities to use local suppliers to get equal or better quality at lower prices. I have personal experienced this in the Cincinnnati, OHIO market.

Hotel deptt Organization

I will discuss how managers can organize important and repetitive functions in hotels to improve efficiency and reduce expenses,depending on situation.We will separate our discussion in different parts for different category of hotel administration.

Its managers job to give structure to hotel operations that will establish an authority and span of control for staff & business as a whole. We will talk here about independent owner/operator/manager .

There are many hotels(may be called as motels) where the hotel owner is the operator/manager and worker himself who will clean and maintain the property either by himself or with his/her spouse or associates/partners.

1.responsible for checking-in guests
2.responsible for checking-out guests
3.responsible for assisting during guest stay
4.responsible for reservations on phone or through GDS(global distribution system) with help from expedia,hotels.com, priceline etc
5.responsible for marketing/sales efforts
6.responsible for inventory purchase,storage & control
7.responsible for security and watching for safety of guests
8.responsible for resolving guest customer complaints
9.responsible for money spent vs money earned(budgeting)
10.responsible for legal matters personally(unless formed LLC or incorporated)

what after busy season -3

This the continuation of the last one.
7.Updated amenities like new carpeting,furniture,tv packages,food menu and decor are just few to name..

8.Special rate for sports teams coming to town for football,basketball,soccer,ho ckey,baseball,softball events for local as well as cross-state teams can be year around busy for your hotels..just make sure you provide them what they will consider 'friendly' amenity for price paid compared to your competitor

9.Packages created for children,family and older clients tailored to their specific needs can go a long way..like a hotel near kids park can have tickets for them,near lake hotel will have seniors special to rent boat and go fishing or sailing,family oriented packages can be created for hotels nearby shopping,tourist desitinations making deals with local companies where its win-win for both,coupons for local bars,restaurants,theaters for younger folks,making best use of theaters,art studios,natural beauty,tourist spot,conventions,corporate companies,colleges,highschools etc

10.Low and guaranteed discount rates for third party reservation agents like travel agents,Online booking sites like expedia,travelocity,hotels.com ,orbitz,hotwire,priceline and others who sell hotels along with other packages like airline tickets,rental cars..they will give you good business for those empty beds during off season..and best part is you don't have to go looking for those guests..these agents will send them to your doors with little commission.
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what after busy season 2

3.Conference rooms or meeting rooms that host variety of events all year from birthday parties,anniversaries,dating events,graduation parties,political events,local visitors and convention bureau sponsored events,chamber of commerce meetings,corporate meetings,interview and job fairs,weddings,homecoming/prom parties are just to name a few..the sales/marketing manager are paid to do just that and they have plenty of resources that they can use to best attract the clients like breakfast/restaurant packages,jacuzzi special rates,special parking rates,overhead projectors and sound system for high-profile meetings/events,round table discussion facility for job fairs,bouquet service for weddings,internet,print,copy availability,24-hr conceirge facility,phone and other messaging services,maid service etc.Utilizing some of these tools can enhance sales team with more options to negitiate best rates for meeting rooms..plus less wear and tear in meeting room as mostly they have chair,tables,screen if any compared to hotel room.

4.Corporate rate structure for nearby companies can give upto 20% occupancy year round.Even though corporate rate might be low,they occupy beds in times when no traveler is available and hence keeps bills paid off

5.Special packages created for Seasonal Travelers like stay 2 nights and get 3rd free or half price,stay 1 night and breakfast free,stay 3 nights get passes to nearby 'event's center half price or less,stay 7 nights and get honeymoon package that consist champaigne,jacuzzi suits,ocean view,balcony,concierge service,chef's favorite dish etc

6.Fitness facility can be attractive feature for lot of fitness savvy guests

To be continued.........