Hotel Operations Management - Softcover

Hayes, David K.; Ninemeier, Jack D.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0131711490 ISBN 13: 9780131711495

Publisher: Pearson, 2006

Synopsis

Describing in great depth and detail all areas of hotel administration, this accurate book provides an up-to-date and comprehensive examination of the responsibilities of a hotel general manager. It shares with readers the procedures effective managers use to ensure their hotel¿s–and their own–ultimate success. KEY TOPICS This unique approach addresses all of the operating departments of a full-service hotel–Human Resources, Controller, The Front Office, Housekeeping, Food and Beverage, Safety and Property Security, Sales and Marketing, Facility Engineering and Maintenance–from the viewpoint of the General Manager. It also explores franchise agreements and management contracts, purchasing a hotel, and career opportunities. For current and future hotel general managers, and hotel department heads–i.e., executive housekeepers, directors of sales, controllers, and front office managers.

About this title

About the Author:

David K. Hayes, Ph.D. is Managing Owner of the Clarion Lansing Hotel and Conference Center.

Jack D. Ninemeier, Ph.D. is a Professor of Hospitality Business at Michigan State University.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

Hotel managers in today's rapidly changing technological world hold some of the most complex, yet rewarding, jobs in the hospitality industry. The hotel general manager, as the on-site leader of all the hotel's other managers, has the most challenging job. Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the general manager to ensure that each area within the hotel is running smoothly, profitably, and in a manner consistent with the guest service goals of the hotel. This book has been written to help present and future general managers do just that.

Historically, hotel general managers have risen in the ranks from a variety of hotel departments. Thus, for example, an excellent director of hotel sales and marketing might become a hotel general manager. Such an individual will likely have an excellent grasp of hotel sales yet lack experience or expertise in food and beverage, housekeeping, accounting, and other areas. Similarly, a general manager who has been promoted from a prior job as director of food and beverage may find his or her knowledge of hotel sales, as well as other hotel departments, lacking. Hotel Operations Management has been written to fill a void for individuals such as these.

Just as the conductor in an orchestra need not be an expert player of each musical instrument to ensure the orchestra's outstanding sound, the hotel general manager need not have the most technical expertise in, for example, the food and beverage department, to guarantee the production of quality food. In this book, the reader will learn what general managers need to know and do to properly supervise and monitor the activities of the food and beverage, housekeeping, sales and marketing, and engineering departments, to name but a few of the areas of general manager responsibility. To further clarify the purpose of the book, consider the case of carpet stains in a guestroom corridor. It is not the intent of this book to detail the best procedures for removing the stains. That is -the responsibility of the housekeeping department and the specialists within that area who are charged with the task of keeping the hotel clean. It is the general manager's job, however, to monitor the effectiveness of the housekeeping department and to ensure that the department has the funding, supervisory personnel, and equipment required to keep the carpets clean. Thus, readers seeking a book that explains "how to" operate individual hotel departments will be better served selecting books on those specific departments. For the general manager, however, this book is a first compilation of the skills and knowledge required to effectively supervise all of the activities in a midsize full-service hotel. As a result, the book is comprehensive and detailed.

Hotel general managers are often perceived as the "best of the best" within the hospitality industry. The authors believe that this perception is most often accurate. Outstanding hotel managers ensure that their hotels prosper by their attention to detail, support of the managerial and hourly staff within the hotel, and the vision they exhibit for the hotel's goals and achievements. In this book, current and future hotel general managers will learn about the procedures effective managers use to ensure their hotel's, and thus their own, ultimate success.

INTENDED AUDIENCES

Instructors

Instructors will find, for the first time, a comprehensive text that addresses all of the operating departments of a full-service hotel. The key word is comprehensive because Hotel Operations Management is detailed in its coverage of the general manager's responsibilities. It is intended to be so. It is not, however, redundantly laden with information on "how-to" perform tasks that are addressed in other hospitality courses or in hotel departmental-specific textbooks. It is unique in that it addresses hotel management from the viewpoint of the general manager, a position to which many hospitality students aspire.

Students

Serious hospitality students quickly learn that few individuals can be experts in every area of hotel management. It is simply unrealistic, for example, to assume that a hotel front office manager will have the same technical knowledge as the hotel's chief maintenance engineer. Front office managers are experts in their own functional areas, which include managing Internet reservation sites and sophisticated computerized property management systems, whereas the chief maintenance engineer stays current on topics such as the availability of improved building materials and energy conservation techniques. Either of these two individuals, however, may be promoted to the job of hotel general manager. At that time, they each need to understand what they must do to properly manage the new areas they will administer.

It is also unrealistic to assume that one's first hotel job will be that of general manager. In most cases, students will start in a functional area of the hotel, and as their careers progress, they will gain added expertise. This book will be of critical assistance when the student actually reaches the position of general manager. Thus, it should be an important addition to any hotel management student's professional library.

Industry Professionals

There are many parties interested in how effective managers do their work. Hotel investors need to understand what general managers should be doing to help ensure the quality and growth of the hotel investment. Those lenders to the hotel industry can also make better lending decisions if they analyze the activities of a general manager. This book presents, in copious detail, the systems a general manager should have in place to monitor departmental effectiveness. Lenders who are aware of such systems and can verify their presence are in a better position to make quality lending loan decisions.

Those individuals in the franchise community, such as franchise sales representatives, inspectors, franchise services directors, and others in corporate franchisor positions may not always have a strong background in hotel operations. This book will help those individuals better understand the challenges facing the modern hotel general manager.

Within a hotel, department heads and assistant managers benefit if they understand how the segment of the hotel they manage meshes with all other areas within the hotel. The general manager has that perspective, and it is presented in this book. In addition, department heads and those that aspire to become department heads need to know what a general manager will expect from them. In this way, they can better develop their own skills and thus improve the quality of their work and their career advancement potential.

CHAPTER ORDER AND CONTENT

An important decision to be made in the production of a book such as Hotel Operations Management relates to the proper sequencing of information. There is no uniform agreement on this sequence. Thus, for example, some would state that a thorough knowledge of front office management should precede learning about the sales and marketing department, whereas others would maintain that the reverse order best ensures understanding. The authors realize that there is honest disagreement on how best to "learn" the hotel business and celebrate the differences of opinion as healthy and quite beneficial to the field of study. In the final analysis, however, sequencing decisions do have to be made, and in this book the authors elected to begin with a history of the industry (Chapter 1), followed by specific information about the role of the general manager (Chapters 2-3), information related to the actual management of the functional areas of the hotel (Chapters 4-11), a chapter related to the unique situations of hotel franchising and operating under a management contract (Chapter 12), and, finally, a review of the processes encountered when buying a hotel (Chapter 13), a long-term personal goal of many individual hotel general managers.

CHAPTER FUNDAMENTALS

There is not, the authors believe, another book that takes the unique approach to hotel management presented in Hotel Operations Management. Because this is true, the authors were free to create a new, and first of its kind, user-friendly book, and they were also challenged to produce the book in a way that could serve as a model for the efforts of future authors. As a result, the book includes the following fundamental components.

"This Chapter at Work"

Each chapter begins with a narrative summary that describes what will be presented in the chapter, as well as why the information is important to the success of a general manager.

"Tiered Content Outline"

Each chapter's outline has been carefully developed to provide the maximum ease in finding important information. The outline also provides a detailed preview of the chapter's content.

"Hotel Terminology at Work"

As is true in many professional fields, hotel managers often speak their own unique language. Thus, for example, guests may be "walked," "par levels" will be established for laundry items, "STAR" reports will be analyzed, and the "GDS" will ensure reservation connectivity. When hotel specific terms are used in the book (and they are used extensively), they are defined at the time of usage, often with direct usage examples that help to further clarify their meaning. The special language of hoteliers is both creative and extensive. In this book, the reader is thoroughly exposed to that language without being burdened by definitions of common words that are not unique to the hotel industry.

"Managers at Work"

Hotel General Managers routinely face unique problems and situations that require outstanding decision-making skills. The "Managers at Work" component of this text places the reader in the position of general manager through vignettes that require decisions to be made to solve realistic problems of the type that must be faced now or in the ...

About this edition

• Publisher: Pearson
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0131711490
• ISBN 13: 9780131711495
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 592