Chapter 7
Front Office Equipments
Chapter 7 – Front Office Equipments
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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
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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
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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
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Key Rack
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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
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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
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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 day’s
grouping
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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
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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 hotel’s
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 guest’s 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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