Hotel Management and Operations

The day-to-day operations of a hotel are the key factors determining the success or failure of its service. It is necessary to understand the structure and operations of hotels in order to get an overview of how the organization fits together. The main purpose of hotels is to provide travelers with shelter, food, refreshment, and similar services and goods, offering on a commercial basis things that are customarily furnished within households but unavailable to people on a journey away from home. Historically hotels have also taken on many other functions, serving as business exchanges, centers of sociability, places of public assembly and deliberation, decorative showcases, political headquarters, vacation spots, and permanent residences. The hotel as an institution, and hotels as an industry, extended the influence of urban culture. Hotel development also involved diversification of hotel types. Most early hotels had been large urban luxury establishments, but newer variants quickly emerged. Resort hotels, designed to accommodate the rising tide of tourists, were built in scenic rural landscapes far from the cities where the hotel form had been born. Commercial hotels, more simply furnished and less expensive than the luxury variant, served the growing ranks of traveling salesmen and other commercial workers set in motion by the burgeoning economy. Residential hotels, dedicated to the housing needs of families increasingly unable to afford private houses in expensive urban real estate markets, served as the prototypes for apartment buildings. In this Text, students will acquire the basic knowledge and skills in the various aspects of hotel operations, including front office, housekeeping and food and beverage operations.