Accommodation Report on Renaissance London Heathrow Hotel

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CONTENTS PAGE

Introduction ......................................................................................... 3

. Overview ....................................................................................... 4

2. Housekeeping Department ................................................................. 6

3. Business Performance......................................................................12

Appendices ....................................................................................... 17

Appendix A: Guest Rooms .................................................................... 18

Appendix B: Food & Beverage ............................................................... 20

Appendix C: Job Description of Executive Housekeeper ............................. 21

Appendix D: Emails ............................................................................. 26

Appendix E: Deals At The Hotel ............................................................. 28

Appendix F: Bibliography ..................................................................... 31

Appendix G: Reading List ..................................................................... 35

Appendix I: Images Used ..................................................................... 37

Appendix J: Assistance From ................................................................ 38

INTRODUCTION

The Aim of the Individual Hotel Case Study

The Individual Hotel Case Study is a report aimed at providing a basic understanding of Accommodation, Sales and Operations of a chosen hotel. The report also provides a framework on which to build further studies.

The report will look to identify the overall performance of a hotel in terms of its sales and profit, with a large emphasis on the rooms division. It also looks at marketing strategies the hotel implements to attract business and increase sales revenue. With the module having a significant emphasis of the rooms division, I have been instructed to select a department and evaluate the job role of the manager of that department.

For the basis of this study, I have used a number of research methods, which includes:

* Textbooks

* Internet Websites

* Carried out Research

* Interviews of Personnel from the Hotel.

I would also like to indicate that the hotel has been a major part of my life, as my mother has been at the hotel for over thirty years. I have also had a number of roles at the hotel, so I do have a lot of inside knowledge on the property, as well as the management.

I have chosen to conduct my report on the Renaissance London Heathrow Hotel.

The mission statement of the hotel:

"Leave time at our door, and let us make your minutes count"

According to the Marriott website (2009)1, The Renaissance brand provides a tailored service to suit the needs of every business and leisure guest, which its hotels personify with their consistent level of high standards. By focusing on detail, the hotels create a stylish and distinctive ambience that is embodied throughout the hotels of this brand2. The Renaissance London Heathrow Hotel aims to provide their guests with a unique, elegant and sophisticated experience3.

The hotel itself is a four star contemporary Marriott property located within the vicinity of one of the busiest airports in the world4. With the benefit of being located near London Heathrow Airport and Central London, the location of the hotel makes it an ideal venue for both business and leisure guests5. With the hotel also being close to many of London's iconic attractions and landmarks, such as, the Windsor Castle, the London Eye and Kew Gardens6, the hotel becomes an attractive option for families.

In total the hotel has 649 rooms spread across 4 floors7, with the more exclusive rooms boasting a stunning view of the main runway, which became extremely popular during the days of the Concorde. In terms of the sheer size of the property, it can label itself as the largest hotel of the Heathrow area. Please view Appendix A to see guest room details.

Its 28 meeting rooms culminate a total of 2,906 square metres8, providing the hotel with the facility to easily accommodate large business groups for meetings and conferences, which due to its prime location makes it a popular venue for businesses. Please view Appendix B to see details of the food & beverage outlets.

Nothing sends out a stronger message than cleanliness in a hospitality operation. No level of service, friendliness, or glamour can equal the sensation a guest has upon entering a spotless, tidy, and conveniently arranged room. The importance of this is enhanced within the service industry, more than any other industry, simply because a hotel predominantly focuses itself on the selling of an intangible product i.e. the service.

To send this message of quality, housekeeping must be endowed with the same professionalism as other hospitality functions. The tasks performed by the housekeeping department are critical to the smooth daily operation of the hotel.

Cleanliness of a hotel is efficiently managed by the housekeeping department. Margaret Kappa Et al (1997) have stated that the role of this department is to ensure the cleanliness, maintenance and aesthetic appeal of the property. The housekeeping department not only prepares clean guestrooms on a timely basis for arriving guests, but it also cleans and maintains everything in the hotel so that the property is as fresh and attractive as the day it opened for business.

Margaret Kappa Et al (1997) describe hotel divisions and departments by dividing them into categories: 'revenue centres' and 'support centres'.

Revenue centres are those that sell goods or services to guests and in doing so generate revenue for the hotel, this would include areas of the hotel, such as, the front office and food and beverage outlets. Support centres on the other hand do not directly generate revenue, but play a supporting role to the hotel's revenue centres. The housekeeping department is a major support centre within the rooms division. Without the housekeeping department the front office would not be able to sell any rooms, and in doing so means that the hotel would not be able to generate any revenue.

With the Renaissance London Heathrow Hotel being such a large property and offering so many different services, its easy to see that there are more employees working in the housekeeping department of the hotel than in any other department. This is justified by the size of the property, which should provide a general idea of the amount of work performed by the department.

The housekeeping department is not just responsible for maintaining cleanliness of the hotel's 649 guest rooms, but it is also responsible for maintaining the cleanliness of its 28 meeting rooms, any public/lobby areas, as well as maintaining cleanliness of other departmental areas of the hotel.

To be able to sustain the workload the department has a workforce of 103.5 employees, which includes all management, supervisional and operational staff. The organisation chart in figure 1 shows a hierarchy of the department, which not

FIGURE 1:

ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE OF THE HOUSEKEEPING DEPARTMENT

RENAISSANCE LONDON HEATHROW HOTEL

only illustrates who responds to who, but also the number of employees in each area.

Not only in this property, but across many of the Marriott properties, the housekeeping department is seen as an area in which the hotels can really reduce its wages/salaries10.

Most of the operational staff within the housekeeping department of the Renaissance London Heathrow Hotel, which includes employees in positions, such as, Room Attendants, Public Area/Office Cleaners and Porters, are employed through an agency11. This saves the department a lot of money in wages, as these employees are not considered to be Marriott Associates, so are not offered access to Marriott Associate benefits, such as, gym access, sick pay, holiday pay etc12. Another benefit is that the hotel can vary the number of workforce needed depending on its business. For example, as the business at the moment is down, they do need as many room attendants as they may have done this time last year13.

The majority of the department is eastern European, and many cannot speak English. The department finds it more cost effective to hire a supervisor who can speak their language than go out and recruit English speaking employees.

THE EXECUTIVE HOUSEKEEPER

The Executive Housekeeper is considered as the head of the department and reports back to the Cluster Director of Rooms, who is not only responsible for the Renaissance London Heathrow Hotel, but also the other two Marriott properties within the area: the Marriott London Heathrow Hotel and the Marriott Heathrow/Windsor Hotel.

Below is an outline of the general duties and responsibilities associated with the position of the Executive Housekeeper at the Renaissance London Heathrow hotel. Please look at Appendix C to view a detailed job description of the position.

The Executive Housekeeper has over responsibility for:

* The cleanliness of assigned areas of the hotel

* Efficient operation of the housekeeping department

* Purchasing inventory and control of housekeeping-related items

* Associate morale

* Fire, Health & Safety guest focused hospitality

* Setting and achieving both monthly and yearly budgets.

* Inter departmental relations.

With the hotel relatively low on business due to the effects of the economic slowdown, budgets were needed to be reviewed to see where the hotel could reduce its costs. After careful consideration, as a strategy to reduce costs, the department heads were advised to become more active in the day-to-day running of their departments, taking over some of the duties of the rank below.
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The daily duties right now would include the following:

* Check rooms, floors, trolleys, public areas

* Order stock for the department

* Keep the purchase order up-to-date*

* Develop monthly accruals*

* Log purchase orders*

* Log and sign invoices*

*These are roles that used to be duties of the accounting department; however, to reduce costs, departmental heads are now required to carry out these tasks14.

As well as carrying out the duties already mentioned, being a departmental head means that the position of ...

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