Accommodation

With the evolution of things and growth in business mind and innovation; hospitality has been commercialized. Therefore the guest has to pay for the generous and cordial reception given. Commonly this is done in a well-organized environment where the entertainers are hired to provide their services and are paid by the management from the money paid by the guests.

It refers to the room or the housing and food provided to both domestic and external visitors. They have varying price charges from low budget; favorable for people with low income, to luxurious and expensive ones. The main agenda of accommodation is to provide a home away from home, a place for the travelers to rest. By the look of things from the human wants view, housing is a basic human want and therefore the traveler should also be provided with

Imagine you are about to travel abroad for a duration ranging from one day to say three months. What will you eat, where will you sleep? Accommodation provides a place for temporally settlement and food for travelers. It is the heart of hospitality. It is worth remembering that entertainment of a hungry man is food. Besides food and housing; clients are also provided with entertainment accommodation.

This is a self-contained housing unit under one storey. They are meant for accommodation of visitors who are likely to stay for more than one month.  

These are accommodations meant for travelers that offer a bed for one night and a breakfast in the morning.

These are houses owned by the individual, in addition to their normal homes, meant for stay during the holidays (Day, Niekerk &Okumus, 2017).

This is a commercial lodging, meals and other hospitality offering accommodation center for the travelers from overseas and the local ones also eg Hotel Rang Mahal (Jaisalmer).

These are accommodation facilities commonly located by the road sides with small parking area. They mainly target the travelers who will have to pause in the middle of their journey for a meal and relive.  A good example is the Caribbean motel in Wildwood crest, new

As the name suggest, this facilities management is not affected by outside forces. They are financed and directly managed by individuals or a small group of people. Sole proprietorship best defines this kind of hotels in business view .They develop their own standards, procedures, best practices, policies and system support on their own without the interference of non-owners.  In case of any issue with the above, adjustment is done to suite the facility to the better. Wedge wood Hotel and Spa is good example of this discussion in Vancouver. The ownership of the hotel has changed through inheritance from the father to daughter.

This is an ownership and managerial strategy where an individual or a group of investors buy or build a hotel and use the name of an existing one on payment of franchise fee. This ownership model reduces the of risks accrued to establishment of new firms as the new firm now uses a well-established and renown existing firm. A good example is the Coast Hotels. Most businesses always have a hard time in establishing themselves in the market. People tend to get addicted to the places they have once been before and enjoyed. Developing taste for other places may be hard. On the other note it is customer’s joy to get away to the new branch of the hotel he has once been to the old branch. In this case the firm is dedicated to maximizing sales at the opening stage.

How accommodation contributes to the industry of hospitality

  This is an ownership model where the developer’s capital buildsby selling shares from eighth to quarter fractions. A good example is Sun Peaks Ski Resort in Kamloops. This implies that a single hotel falls under possession of about but not exceeding eight people.

These are organization owned by individuals or group where the profit made at the end of trading period is not shared among the members, instead it is ploughed back in the organization with the aim of meeting the objectives of the organization. Such businesses include the trust, cooperatives and NGOs.

These are organization started by individuals or a group of people, where the profit made by the end of trading period is divided among the investors. They include the sole proprietors and the limited companies.  

Imagine a situation; where you landing to a countryyou entered into a hotel without an idea on the kind of services offered, their quality and the cost. The situation can be very embarrassing especially when quality and money are factor of high degree concern.

Classification agenda is to inform the visitor on the kind of services to expect in the given accommodation and their prices of charging. Some travelers has a lot of money, they extravagant and will live to their luxury every time regardless of what it will cost them. From their view satisfaction is what matter most.  Others are small spenders or they have little amount of money. This is the key point on necessity of grading; so that every traveler can be sure that the accommodation center he is just to get into is proportional to his pocket size and desired level of luxury.

There are various grading systems based on quality and the level of luxury that goes at a proportional cost on the same subject. The fivestar systems is the prominent one of all the systems. The number stars in this classification system ranges from one to five; each star counts and indicates the level of quality of services. The higher the number of star indicates more luxurious services and hence high cost. From the top are the five stars to one star at the bottom.

This is an accommodation facility that is extremely luxurious. They are usually open all the time of the day in a week.  They are spacious and the interior design and furnishing meets the international standards. The staffs also demonstrate high level of skills to serve international guests. Guest reception is on individual level and always have flowers presented to each individual. Cleaning services are offered to the clients on twenty four hours basis. They have large parking and these qualities suggest that they are the most expensive accommodation in existence (Lugosi, and Jameson, 2017). An example of five hotels is Millennium Hilton Bangkok (Bangkok).

They are often open twenty four hours of every day of a week. They are well spacious and the ratio of the guest to staffs is relatively high. Every room is equipped with a television. Cleaning services is also offered for sixteen hours in a day. They also have relatively large parking area and the quality of the services offered meets the international standards. However the quality of a four star hotel is below that of the five star in all aspects. In Kenya SarovaPanafric is a good example. (Tongchaiprasit &Ariyabuddhiphongs, 2016)

Types of accommodation services

Apart from having spacious rooms they offer special services like ironing and cleaning. They have a swimming pool for recreation services. In this case Osoita Lodge Kenya is an example of one

They are smaller than the three starsbut more spacious than one star. They are second last costly in this grading system. Cleaning services is on eight hours a day and they offer free servicesWi-Finewspaper and reading light and stand. They also gives their client breakfast buffets. This is where Hotel Dolomit in Munich falls.

They are normally owned by owned by sole proprietors.  They have limited restaurant services and have a breakfast option. Cleaning is normally once a day. Under this category falls theEarls Court Gardens Hotel – Guest house.

Increased rating

A hotel that is operated by successful company which has many other established successful investments is likely to be rated more in the market.

Long lasting customers

Some of the customers wish to be associated with specific owners of hotels hence grading with the ownership might be advantageous for the business.

This are accommodation facilities located in the center of the city eg Taj Mahal in Mumbai.

These are accommodation center located along the highways to provide lodging overnight.

Based on the size the accommodation centre can be classified as small hotels; these are accommodation centre that have 100 or less rooms, while medium size have 100-300rooms and large hotels have more than  1000 rooms (Chang, and Busser, 2017).

When one hear of accommodation, the first thing that comes into his mind is food and bed. However this is not all that accommodation entails. It’s rather divided into broad category of fields including;

This refers to the bedding services offered by the accommodation sector. Normally, it’s a small room fitted with a bed and beddings. In some lodgings the customer is also served with a simple breakfast.  

This is the section that only performs the duty of preparing food stuffs for the guests. The fact that different people have different origin and therefore different food, the restaurant sector caters for this need. 

Other accommodation services offered include the events planning, transportation meeting and events, entertainment and recreation as well as visitor information and additional tourism services.

The invention of internet has turned the world global. Communications between people overseas have become effective just like physical communication could be. Platforms rich of relevant information have been raised; ranging from applications embedded on the internet to websites.

The field of tourism and travel has not been left out. Internet hosted websites like Tripadvisors have been made. The benefit of these sites is of great significance to the travelers.  They help a traveler to search, evaluate and determine whether the accommodation place in question suits your need.  If the accommodation meets the client requirement; then he gets in touch with the hotel reception and booking s done online in advance (Xu, and Gursoy, 2015)

Increases the market

The feedback given by various clients in relation to the services offered by the hotel is very crucial in the attraction of new customers to the hotel.

Different forms of ownership of accommodation services

Provision of relevant clarifications

Online reviews provide relevant clarifications such as the unique services offered, the degree of security within the hotel which enhance the satisfaction of the potential guests when deciding on the hotel to reside.

As the name suggest it is located at the entrance of the accommodation and is therefore the first place the guest lands to as he gets to the accommodation. Normally there is a desk with staffs allocated to assist incoming guests. Any question by the client to the organization is first received and answered by the relevant personnel at this very entry area (Singal, 2014). The visitors are received here and after registration they are forwarded to the area of their interest after the allocation of rooms. It’s worth noting that there are some accommodation centers that providetransport services to their clients and therefore the allocation of the driver is also done at this office. Similar to any other office in any organization, front office duties are divided and officials assigned respective duties. The person with the heist rank in this office is the front office manager followed by his assistant. Other vital officials in this office are the reservationist, clerk, auditor and the telephone operator (Altin, Koseoglu, Yu, and Riasi, 2018)

The head of this office is the front office manager with the duty of direct supervision of other staffs and monitoring progress of the hotels front office. The front office manager also plays another major role of training the staffs to ensure that the services offered are of the best quality. The role of the manager does not only emphasize on watching over the performance but it rather goes down to training the staff to enhance efficiency. Most hotels have a trading period of one month, after this duration the manager is expected to give the report on how many visitor and their origin(Lillo, Cortés, García, Lajara, and Sáez, 2018)

The assistance manager plays an important role of staffing, duties and shifts allocation of staffs. It is also his responsibility to ensure that duties are completed for the shift to close. The responsibility of evaluating labor expenses and the budget figures also falls in his hands. When the manager is not in the assistant manager takes on the duties of the manager just like in any other office (Morgan, and Pritchard, 2018).

Another staff in the front office of accommodation offering centre is the clerk; he receives payment and makes room reservation as well registering the arriving visitor and respond to their complains in case there is one. Registration process duty by the clerk varies depending on the booking format; some clients do the booking online and pay in advance will others will physically present themselves for the same(Guillet, and Mohammed, 2015)

 The front office also has an auditor with the responsibility of accounting duties who work closely with the cashier in the front office. The cashier carries out the duties of holding the account balances of the organization and collect payment on meals and laundry, telephone calls and currency conversion for the clients.

Differences between commercial and non-commercial businesses

The reservationist in front office interacts with the guests and assists them in various activities like rooms booking, booking for reservation and transport.In the front office there is also the telephone operator with the duty of transferring the calls from outside the hotel to their guest (Sheehan, Grant, and Garavan, 2018)

Creating a wide market

The front office department creates an appeal for the potential visitors who decides to come and rest in the hotel. The front office department is responsible for displaying pictures indicating the types of services visitors should expect. The photos may outline the entertainment services, the expertise of the catering team and other unique services such as massaging. All these aspects are very crucial in the process of attracting the visitors to the organization.

Creates a good image for the hotel

The visitors are given a warm reception and assigned competent personnel to cater for their requests during their stay in the hotel. This is important because it creates a good image of the hotel to the members of the public which increases the profitability as many visitors can be attracted to the hotel.

Facilitates clear communication

Front office department is the central point for the crucial communication within the organization. This is enhances the achievement of communication objectives within the organization.

The improvement of the accommodation centre from one lower grade to a higher one is determined by the front office and the management of the center. This includes aspects like good interaction between the visitors and the office. There is a business slogan that says the customer is always right and should therefore be treated as so. Also the front office is responsible for clarifying any issue to the customer incase it arises. The front office goes a mile further to the customer’s treatment by offering other services like organizing for the transport of the visitors.

Clearly the front office is in control of the services offered in any accommodation centre and therefore the pricing of this services hence the grading

Conclusion

To sum up, human need a home even when out of home. Hospitality industry is vital for the local and external visitor; it provides accommodation and meals to the travelers. The variance in cost is therefore because of the differences in qualities offered and the luxury interest (Ho, Ahn, and Law, 2015).

Reference

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