Chapter 7

Front Office Equipments

Chapter 7 Front Office Equipments

Learning Objective
To learn
Various types of equipments used in front office
Equipments that make the hotel operations easy
and systematic
Methods to handling of the office equipments

Chapter 7 Front Office Equipments

Room Rack
The room rack are the equipments where registration
records are inserted to serve as room rack slips
Considered as most important piece of front office
equipment
Array of metal file pockets designed to hold room rack
slips that display guest and room status information
When key slots are added to the room rack, it can
serve as a combination room and key rack
Chapter 7 Front Office Equipments

Room Rack
One glance at the room rack should immediately
inform the front desk agent of the occupancy and
housekeeping status of all rooms
Front desk agents normally use this information to
match available rooms with guests needs during the
registration process

Chapter 7 Front Office Equipments

Key Rack

Chapter 7 Front Office Equipments

Key Rack
These are sets of racks were generally kept at the
front desk in earlier day
A key rack is an array of numbered compartments
used to store guestroom keys
Key racks are often placed in front desk drawers to
ensure the safety and security of guests

Chapter 7 Front Office Equipments

Key Rack
A combination of mail, message and key rack can be
either a free-standing wall unit or an under the
counter row of apartments

When the mail and message compartments of the

rack are open from both sides, telephone operators
and front desk agents
Operators who record telephone messages for guests
can insert them into the rack from the back side; front
desk agents can retrieve the messages from the front
side
Chapter 7 Front Office Equipments

Reservation Racks
A special board or series of pigeonholes where cards
are put to show which room have been booked
Front office uses both two types of reservation racks
In an advance reservation rack, reservation rack
slops or registration cards are arranged by the guest
scheduled dates of arrival and with each days
grouping

Chapter 7 Front Office Equipments

Reservation Racks
A current reservation rack is portable subset of the
advance reservation rack
The current reservation rack is used by the front desk
agents to assist in processing guests during
registration

Chapter 7 Front Office Equipments

Information Rack
An information rack is an index of in-house guests, by
both last name and room number
An information rack is commonly use to assist front
office employees with proper routing of telephone
calls, mails
The information rack normally consists of aluminium
slots designed to hold guest information slips

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Folio Trays
Folio tray or folio bucket is where the guest folios are
stored and arranged by guestroom numbers
Guest folios remain in the tray throughout the
occupancy stage of the guest cycle, except when they
are used in posting transactions
A second folio tray is normally located in the hotels
accounting office

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Folio Trays
This tray contains the folios of departed guests being
directly-billed or of guests who paid by credit card

Once these accounts are settles, the folios are moved

to permanent storage location

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Account Posting Machine

An electromechanical or
electronic device use in
semi-automated hotels

An account posting
machine is used to post,
monitor, and balance
charges and credits to
guest accounts

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Other Equipments
Voucher rack it is a container for storing vouchers
for future reference and verification during the night
audit

Cash register used to record to cash transactions

and maintain cash balances
Telephone equipment telephone equipments
consists of call accounting systems, automatic call
dispensing, telephone / room status system, fax
machine and call detection
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Other Equipments
Credit card imprinter Imprinter presses a credit
card voucher against a guests credit card

Magnetic strip reader a magnetic strip reader,

reads data magnetically encoded and stored on the
magnetic tape strip on credit card
Time stamp Time stamp recording is important for
establishment of chronology of events

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Other Equipments
Security Monitor CCTV cameras for security
personnel to monitor certain areas of hotel
Wake-up devices used by telephone operators to
place wake-up calls
Multi-zone clock indicators of the time at different
time zones across world

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Other Equipments
Wi-fi ticket provides user id and password to guest
to access the internet facility of the hotel

Card imprinting machine PVC cards enabling the

customers to make it easy to book for them

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Safety Equipments
Safety equipments used in hotel the basic safety
equipments include
Smoke detectors to detect smoke in case of fire as
a preventive measure
Fire extinguishers meant to involve various
classes fires
Carbon monoxide detectors important to detect
as the gas is invisible and dangerous
Sprinkler systems equipments to sprinkler water in
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Chapter 7 Front Office Equipments
case of fire

Safety Equipments
Smoke detectors
To detect smoke in case of fire as a preventive
measure
Some detectors have ability to report heat build up
prior to evidence of smoke or flame

Some of the detectors respond only to the smoke

and other products of combustion

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Safety Equipments
Smoke detectors
Single-station hard wired smoke detectors require
that the unit be on electric wiring as opposed to the
battery power
An automated system integrated all smoke
detectors in each location
Many local jurisdictions enacted local regulations
requiring fully automated smoke detector systems
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Safety Equipments
Fire ExtinguishersFour classes of fires that a lodging property should be
prepared for
Class A Involves ordinary combustibles
Class B Involve flammable liquids
Class C Involve electrical equipment
Class D Involve cooking oils and fats
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Safety Equipments
Carbon Monoxide Detectors
Carbon monoxide is a dangerous by-product of a
malfunctioning water heater, kerosene heater, coal
boiler and any other wood
Carbon monoxide is invisible and has no smell, it
cannot be detected by natural means

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Safety Equipments
Sprinkler Systems
Sprinkler systems are now mandated in an
establishments four stories or higher
Most jurisdictions now require full sprinkler in the new
constructions of any commercial property

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Accident Prevention Signs

Hotel also uses various signs to prevent accidents Danger signs which indicate the immediate
dangers ahead
Caution signs used to warn against potential
hazards
Safety instruction signs use where need for
general instructions relative to safety measures
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Summary
The Front office department of a hotel comprises of
the sections like Reservation, Front Desk, Bell desk,
Travel desk, Concierge etc
The Front office manager must be a skilled planner
who channelizes the various resources

The Front desk agent is the first person a guests sees

on entering the hotel and the last person the guest
sees on leaving
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Summary

The front office is elegantly designed to

accommodate the staff and for the smooth service to
the guests
Number of front office equipments ensure an effective
hospitality of the guest

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