Professional Housekeeping in the Hospitality Industry

Discuss about the Critical Discussions for Faculty of Tourism and Hotels.

Housekeeping can be considered as an art managing the duties and responsibilities of a house like cleaning, purchasing the required goods, maintaining hygiene premises, laundering, payment of monthly bills etc. The housekeeping activity has given priority in the house of the individual, in the organizations, in hotels etc. This activity cannot be performed by anyone while at house or at the hotel premises. According to the guidelines of marik, the housekeeping can be considered as a profession which all individuals should get expertise. He suggest that the employees in the industries like the hospitality, hotels, clinics, restaurants, etc should practice housekeeping well so as to maintain a hygienic premises and so to attract customers (Marik, 2015). From the article of Tyagi and Zagade it is evident that the housekeeping is a profession which requires skills and not everyone can perform excellent housekeeping. In their article it specifies that the hotels and organizations have started outsourcing the housekeeping activities so that they can maintain their premises clean and attractive (Tyagi and Zagade). Every individual in a home or an employee may not have the patience to keep the home or office clean and to manage it properly. For performing the housekeeping effectively one requires patience, proactive thinking should be energetic, should possess the talent to maintain records of purchase and payment details etc. These abilities are not seen in everyone any those who lacks it will miss out something which can put the others also in trouble (Jafarey and Maiti, 2015).  In travel and tourism sectors the management provides additional training and development to their employees for housekeeping (Aziz, 2016). Hence it can be justified that housekeeping is considered as professional skill.

While the job responsibility of a concierge is taken into consideration his primary role is to assist the customers of the hotel with the reservations for restaurants, tours etc. Since concierge is an employee of a hotel who is supposed to perform the above mentioned responsibilities, he is expected to mention the services provided by the hotel initially rather than informing the customers about the services provided by the competitors. Being ethical and responsible towards the hotel where he is working obviously he should refer to the services provided by the hotels so as to gain profit for the organization (Sharma, 2016). According to Mouradian, concierge service is considered as one of the most innovative services provided by the luxury hotels worldwide. This service is particularly intended to provide personalized service to the customers so as to enhance the customer satisfactory level. Through the provision of this service the management ensures that the customers are provided with relevant information regarding the service and assistance (Mouradian, 2015). Hence it becomes the responsibility of a concierge to suggest about the services provided by the hotel itself on demand rather than insisting the other competitors. From this discussions it can be strongly justified that a concierge should work for the benefit for the organization and should perform the duty assigned to him appropriately. Any action opposite to this can be considered as unethical and immoral towards the organization (Menoux, 2016). He or she can suggest outside entities if it is not provided by the hotels. Finally it is the customers who decide which service should be opted.

The Role of a Concierge in Suggesting Hotel Services

Having a web page which includes a reservation system is an asset for a hotel. This brings competitive advantage and many other benefits for the organization. Now when considering a reservation system for a hotel it has to be effective so as to obtain the desired output (Claver, 2012). If a hotel management decides to develop a reservation system which is attractive, user friendly, fast, efficient etc it requires more investment in terms of money and timer. Hence outsourcing the reservation system can be considered as an effective alternative. Mr. Kimes in his journal has specified that through outsourcing the business processes like the reservation systems the hotels can improve their business performances (Kimes, 2016). Through outsourcing the hotels can get a reservation system which is more professional and effective. Through this outsourcing business strategy the hotels can save time and money investments which in turn can bring them more benefits. The up gradation of the reservation systems, advertisements regarding the new services, etc can also be done periodically without any new investments. Once this service this outsourced it becomes their responsibility to maintain and upgrade the system periodically (Islam, 2016). Hence it can be clearly justified that outsourcing the reservation department of hotel is an effective business strategy which can attain competitive advantage, customer attraction, customer satisfaction etc. Maintaining the reservation systems by themselves will require the hotel management to recruit IT professionals to develop, maintain and upgrade the system which can enhance the cost of production of the hotels (Assimakopoulos, 2015).

Automated reception machines are the new innovation in the hotel industry which can replace the staff members and can work continuously without any interruptions. This innovation can change the reputation of the hotels in a positive manner (Yun et al, 2016). The customers can be perceived that the hotel or the organization which utilized this technology is very high tech. The customers would certainly like this type of innovation and can also grab the attention of the customers easily. But these machines cannot replace a majority of the reception staffs. The customers would definitely prefer to speak to the reception staffs rather than machines (Bechet et al, 2015). These automated machines can be utilized for welcoming the guests, providing the general information regarding the services, layout information etc. For such basic services the automated machines are an effective tool which can also reduce the wait time of the customers for the staff members. But for handling the other requirements of the customers like attending the telephones call, for taking orders, for the allocation of the rooms etc the individual staff members are essential. In order to please and make the customers satisfied reception staff members are certainly required (Gidumal and González, 2015). The customers always prefer hospitality which can be delivered only by humans not the machines. Hence the automated machines can be kept as the tool so as to attract the customers and to reduce the work burden of the receptionist. But it cannot be replaced with majority of the staffs in the reception. By replacing the machines with the staff members can certainly reduce the customer satisfactory level (Ruhala, 2015). There may be customers who are not so highly savvy and can struggle with the automated machines is order to get a service. Hence the argument against the statement can be justified.

Outsourcing Reservation Systems for Hotels

When the general managers of the hotels are taken into consideration they should possess good experience and knowledge so as to manage the business operations of the hotel. The general managers gather their experience in the relevant field strating their careers as the executives. There is no general manager who is a manager from the beginning (Aissa and Goaied, 2016). His experience from the smaller job profiles makes him aware about each and every operations of the hotel sector. This enables him to manage his employees and coordinate their work towards the organizational goal. But this decision doesn’t argue that the general manager should have worked as a night auditor whiles his career development stages (Reilly, 2015). If he had worked or gone through this work profile it would an added advantage and would have an awareness regarding that. There is no compulsion that the general manager should have an experience as a night auditor. A general manager should possess relevant educational qualification, experience more than 8 years in a leadership position, good interpersonal and interactive skills, employability skills etc. These all abilities will qualify an individual as a general manager. Hence it is justified that a general manager need not be essentially be a night auditor (Storey, 2016).

References

Aissa, S.B. and Goaied, M., 2016, Determinants of Tunisian hotel profitability: The role of managerial efficiency. Tourism Management, 52, pp.478-487

Aziz, W., 2016. Evaluation of the Performance of Guest Room Attendants of Housekeeping Department (Application to Cairo Three Star Hotels), Journal of Faculty of Tourism and Hotels, Fayoum University, 7(2)

Assimakopoulos, C., Papaioannou, E., Sarmaniotis, C. and Georgiadis, C.K., 2015. Online reviews as a feedback mechanism for hotel CRM systems, Anatolia, 26(1), pp.5-20

Bechet, P., Scortar, R.M., Todorov, T., Boneva, B. and Miclaus, S., 2015. Design and testing of an automated receiving system for the ionospheric sounding in HF radiofrequency range. Acta Technica Napocensis, 56(3), p.15.

Bulchand-Gidumal, J. and Melián-González, S., 2015, Information Technology (IT) in Hotels: A Full Catalogue. Available at SSRN 2771059

Claver, E., González, R., Gascó, J. and Llopis, J., 2012. Information systems outsourcing: reasons, reservations and success factors. Logistics Information Management, 15(4), pp.294-308.

Islam, M.B., 2016. Process improvement in hotel business

Jafarey, S. and Maiti, D., 2015. Glass slippers and glass ceilings: An analysis of marital anticipation and female education. Journal of Development Economics, 115, pp.45-61.

Kimes, S.E., 2016. The evolution of hotel revenue management, Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management, 15(3-4), pp.247-251

Marik, P.E., 2015. House Officers Guidelines 1: Housekeeping. In Evidence-Based Critical Care (pp. 23-28). Springer International Publishing

Mouradian, C., 2015. The Art of Welcome: what are the innovative practices that would enhance the guests’ experience in Luxury Hotels?.

Menoux, T., 2016, July. The Professional Association of Luxury Hotels Concierges. High-Quality Service Professionals Collectively and Globally Organize for Action on a Symbolic Level. In Third ISA Forum of Sociology (July 10-14, 2016). Isaconf.

O’Reilly, C., 2015. Identifying management competencies of hotel owner-managers & general managers in the Republic of Ireland (Doctoral dissertation, Nottingham Trent University).

Ruhala, L., 2015. Increasing Sales in a Hotel Lobby Shop.

Storey, J. ed., 2016. Leadership in Organizations: Current Issues and Key Trends. Routledge.

Sharma, D., 2016. Enhancing customer experience using technological innovations: a study of the Indian hotel industry. Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes, 8(4).

Tyagi, H. and Zagade, S., 2015. Outsourcing: A study on Benefits to Housekeeping Department in Hotels.

Yun, S.G., Shin, J.W., Park, E.S., Bang, H.I. and Kang, J.G., 2016. Efficiency of an Automated Reception and Turnaround Time Management System for the Phlebotomy Room. Annals of laboratory medicine, 36(1), pp.49-54.