Saturday 16 April 2011

Registration

Introduction
                          
Guest registration is one of the first and most lasting impressions on a hotel customer. Guest registration sets the tenor for the stay and is, therefore a critical contact point. The front desk should promote the warmth and hospitality of the property. Guest registration is the point at which critical information is collected about the customer and his / her wishes. If the bottleneck develops in a guest registration, customer complaints arise. As a result the front desk employees are particularly concerned with processing the needed information quickly. The registration procedure of the hotel is critical to the collection of guest information and the initialization of the guest account. Almost all the paperwork in the guest cycle is based on the data that is recorded and verified at, or prior to, check-in.

Pre- Registration

Pre- Registration is an activity of registering a guest even before his arrival, which may be one day before his arrival or on the same day but before his arrival.

The activity includes:

Room Assignment- Guest would be assigned a room according to requirement he made at the time of booking the room and keeping the type of guest in mind. Room is blocked so as to avoid hassles at the time of check in and guest will not wait at reception for a long time. Of Course it depends upon the availability status of that date.

Creation of Guest Folio- The guest folio is created as soon as guest profile is created in case of Automatic system of reservation. The tax related to payment would be recorded in the guest folio.

Determine Room rate- Hotels may offer a number of rates for rooms of the same type. Rates for similarly bedded rooms may vary based on room size, quality of furnishings, location, amenities, and other factors.

Partial Filling of GRC- The information gathered from Reservation form would be recorded in GRC, so as to avoid hassles at the time of registration.

Pre- Registration activity of a Group

·         Reception should have rooming list from reservation department. Rooming List is a list of name, and room sharing details for a group reservation which is submitted by an inbound tour operator, tour wholesaler or travel agent to an accommodation establishment prior to the group arrival.
·         Get tentative time of arrival and departure of the group in order to inform the reception to keep the rooms ready and alert the lobby staff.
·         Name of the Group leader required to coordinate between the hotel and the group members.
·         Guest Registration Card to be filled partially. For a group one registration card can be filled and signed by group leader on arrival and the rooming list must be attached with the GRC.
·         Room Assignment- It involves allocating the rooms to the group, keeping in mind the status of occupancy. Mostly groups are assigned the rooms at the same floor to ease their communication.
·          Room Check and Amenities- After allocation of rooms for expected arrivals, Front office and House keeping department, will ensure that room is fully served and prepared for occupancy.


Pre-Registration Activity of FIT (for Guaranteed Reservation and Non- Guaranteed Reservation)

·         Preregistration activities are the registration activities that occur before the guest arrival (Generally one day in advance).  
·         The receptionist will prepare an expected Arrival and departure list.  

·         Block the rooms as per the necessity of the guest- Guest would be allotted a room according to requirement he made at the time of booking the room and keeping the type of guest in mind. Room is blocked so as to avoid hassles at the time of check in and guest will not wait at reception for a long time. Of Course it depends upon the availability status of that date. 
            
·         Determine room rate- Hotels may offer a number of rates for rooms of the same type. Rates for similarly bedded rooms may vary based on room size, quality of furnishings, location, amenities, and other factors.

·         GRC to be filled partially- The information gathered from Reservation form would be recorded in GRC, so as to avoid hassles at the time of registration.


·         Creation of Guest Folio- The guest folio is created as soon as guest profile is created in case of Automatic system of reservation with the tax related to payment would be recorded in the guest folio.


Pre-Registration Activity of VIP

·         The receptionist will collect the expected arrival list stating the entire guests who will be arriving the next day, highlighting the arrivals of VIP and VVIP guests from reservation.
·         Front Office staff will be blocking the guest rooms for the VIP and VVIP guest according to the type of room and any special request made by the guest at the time of reservation.
·         FO effectively communicates with the house keeping & Room Service department in order to inform the housekeeper to pay special attention to the guest room by keeping it ready for the VVIP guest.
·         FO prepares the amenity voucher in triplicate for the house keeping and the room service department in order to make flower bouquet and place fruits and cookies basket in the guest room prior to the arrival of the guest.

·         Check the room and Amenities placed inside the allotted room/rooms for VIPs.


Registration- Legal Implications

Registration is a mandatory requirement that all guests over the age of 16 years – irrespective of Indian or foreigner, ordinary personnel or VIP. Regardless the size of the hotel, be it small or large guests, must provide basic information about them and fill up either a visitors register / hotel register. The register may be a Red Book / form or a card also called G.R. C (Guest Registration Card). It is a legal obligation for all guests to be registered in the hotel. All guests have to provide their name and nationality. In addition foreigners must provide their passport number, place of issue and next destination. Guests might register by way of recording their details in a register, on a registration card or by using a self check-in kiosk. Group guests and VIP’s are often pre-registered by reception. Many hotels now also have self check-in kiosks. It is the duty of the receptionist to always check the registration details to ensure that it is correct.

The guest has to fill in the form and attest his signature. This is an agreement between the hotel and the guest is also known as a contract between both the parties. It consists of two parts
·         ‘F’ Form- Mandatory to filled by Indian & Foreign Guest
·         ‘C’Form- To be filled by Foreigners only-sent to Foreign Regional Registration Office(FRRO)

C- Form
For all foreign nationals, C- forms need to fill as per Indian law. They are also expected to settle their bills in foreign currency. The source of information for the C- form is basically the visitors passport, visa and in certain cases certificate of registration. A copy is sent to FRRO in case of metropolitan cities, or else to Superintendent of Police or local police Station. It should be sent as soon as possible or within 24 hours, after the arrival of any foreigner. The hotel can obtain the Form C from any Registration Officer on application.
· For every FFIT a separate C form is to be made. It is also important to note that two persons of same nationality can be included in one C form.
· For groups, the group leader on arrival provides the passport details of all the group members and signs the guest registration card on behalf of the group. If the group members are of same nationality than a single C form for entire group is sufficient along with list of passport details attached to it.

Registration Process

The registration process has the following basic concepts.
1. Collection- It is the gathering of information about the guest such as date and time of arrival, guest personal information (name, address, nationality, occupation etc), purpose of visit, date of departure.
2. Product Matching- Assigning the right room to the guest as desired based on availability.
3. Revenue Management-The billing instructions i.e. mode of payment whether by cash, credit card, travelers cheque etc.
4. Rooms Management- The duration of stay of the guest. The availability of the rooms should be checked for reselling it to the next guest.
5. Completion- After the guest has registered a rate for room is decided and a room assigned after establishing his creditability. Then the guest along with his luggage sent to his room. After that the receptionist would complete the paper and other work related to the new arrival


Registration Record

The registration record is a collection of important personal and financial guest information. A typical registration record includes:
i) Guest name and surname
ii) Guest address and telephone number
iii) Company affiliation (if applicable)
iv) Expected arrival date
v) Planned departure date or length of stay
vi) Required room rate
vii) Required room type
viii) Room number
ix) Method of payment
x) Special requests
xi) Signature of the guest.

Registration Methods

Three methods are used for registration by hotels:
1.      Bound Book- It is a big bound book. Guest on arrival fills his details in a line and signs in this book. It is often used in small hotels.
The disadvantages of this book handling are:
·         Confidentiality of guest information cannot be maintained. The next guest can easily access the details of the previous guests.
·         The book is bulky and gets dirty and torn very soon due to frequent usage.
·         Pre-registration of VIP and others cannot be done.
·         Only one guest can register at a time.


       2. Loose Leaf Register
In this system, a separate loose leaflet is used for each day instead of a consolidated / bound register. To some extent the confidentiality of guest information can be maintained. It is mostly suitable for medium sized hotels.

The disadvantages of this method are:
·         It can be easily misplaced, if the desk clerks are careless.
·         The leaflet may not be fully filled or in some occasions single sheet may not be sufficient.
·         Filing also becomes a problem
·         Only one guest can register at a time.
    3. Individual Registration
In this system, a separate card is used for each guest. The cards may be designed so as to serve various purposes. It may be made in duplicate or triplicate with the help of carbon papers so that one copy can be sent to Government departments and the other retained by the hotel.
The following are the advantages of this method:
§  The size of the card is small and quite handy.
§  They may also be used to serve as a guest history card.
§  Complete privacy of the guest is maintained.
§  Many guests can be registered in the rush hours at the same time.



Room and rate assignment

The hotel shall identify the room preference of the guest and allocate an available room from the existing specific room category (i.e. type & rate). That's why, under semi and fully automated systems, reservation and check-in clerks shall be sales minded while negotiating room and rate assignment with guests. This fact applies for registration clerks under the manual system as well. Moreover, while assigning rooms check-in clerks shall keep an eye on hotel's reservation commitments and not assign a room to a guest, while that very room is pre-assigned to some other guests for the same period of time.



Room Rates
While pricing rooms, the hotel shall keep in mind that rate should be between a minimum (determined by cost structure) and a maximum (determined by competition structure) boundary as depicted below:

Minimum (Hurdle Rate) < Room Rate < Maximum (Rack Rate)
Cost Structure < Room Rate < Competition Structure

Rack rate: The price a hotel charges for a room before any discount has been taken into account. The published rate for a room sometimes set artificially high in order to accommodate and used to calculate a variety of discounts.
Front office department shall finalize room rates with guests during the registration process. Moreover, rack rates shall only be applicable for walk-ins especially during the high season. Lastly, room rates might be affected by:
a) Seasonality
b) Service level
c) Room location
d) Type of Guest and / or usage (eg. commercial, corporate, complementary, group, family, day, and package-plan etc.).


Room statuses

V/D - Vacant / Dirty
O/D - Occupied / Dirty
V/C - Vacant / Clean
O/C - Occupied / Clean
V/I - Vacant / Clean & Inspected
O/I - Occupied / Clean & Inspected
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