Weak Dollar Will Help Tourism Industry, Executives Say

LAS VEGAS – A weakened dollar is benefiting the U.S. tourism industry, luring foreign visitors who want to see their euros and yen go farther, travel executives said at a major industry conference here.

Already, hotels, restaurants, and merchants in tourist destinations are seeing an increase in foreign visitors, industry executives said at the Global Travel & Tourism Summit in Las Vegas. Several hotel industry executives said they are seeing particularly notable increases in travelers from Europe, where the common currency has risen against the dollar. 

"There are more Europeans coming to the United States, said Arne Sorenson, the chief operating officer of the hotel company Marriott International Inc. "That will continue." 

The optimism over increased tourism comes amid a long-term drop in the value of the dollar. The dollar's weakness has given foreign travelers more buying power when they visit the U.S., burnishing the country's appeal as a destination.

California has seen a considerable pick up in international travel, said Caroline Beteta, chief executive of the California Travel and Tourism Commission. Ms. Betata attributed the influx of travelers to the currency, as well as a broader global recovery and the state's marketing efforts. 

"The international traveler spends more money than domestic travelers and they travel off-peak," Ms. Beteta said. "They are absolutely platinum business."

Still, the U.S. isn't seeing the same growth in foreign visitors that other countries have seen. Over the past 10 years, the travel industry says international travel to the U.S. has increased just 2%. Top industry executives have recently stepped up pressure on the federal government to ease restrictions on travel to the U.S. and speed up the time it takes to process visas. 

"The economic opportunity for travel into the United States is enormous," Mr. Sorenson said. "We will lose if we don't seize it. Those travelers will learn to go somewhere else."

The industry is also closely watching the price of oil, the axis of what so many things in the travel sector depend on, most especially air travel costs. 

"The biggest issue facing the airline industry is fuel price," Steve Ridgway, chief executive of Virgin Atlantic Airways, said in an interview. "If fuel prices stay where they are…air travel is absolutely going to get more expensive."

Hotels Replace Mainstream Mini-bar Snacks with Locally Made Ones

By Barbara De Lollis

Forget Pringles chips and Snickers bars.

Hotels are increasingly replacing mainstream candy, chips, beverages and other mini-bar treats with locally made indulgences.

The 400-room Omni Berkshire hotel, for example, recently decided to replace Pringles in its guest-room mini-bars with chips made on Long Island, the hotel's chief, Peter Strebel, told me. His team has also been meeting with chocolate producers from Long Island and Brooklyn.

"We're going to replace M&Ms with a local chocolate provider," he said.

The go-local trend has been in place at boutique hotels for years, but it's starting to take hold among mainstream chains such as Omni, Hyatt and others - especially in New York.

"The world is moving towards more local and organic," Strebel told me.

Housekeeping Terminology - 1

Antique – Antique furniture belongs to the period before 1840, though nowadays any pieces of furniture that is more than 100 years old is considered an antique.

Amenity – A service or item offered to guests or placed in guestrooms for convenience and comfort, at no extra cost.

Area inventory list – A list of all items and surfaces within a particular area that require the attention of the housekeeping personnel.

Back of the house – The functional areas of the hotel in which employees have little or no guest contact, such as the engineering and maintenance department, laundry room and so on.

Back to back – Describes a heavy rate of check outs and check ins on the same day, so that as soon as room is made up, a new guest checks into it.

Banquet – A term used to describe catering for specific numbers of people at specific times, in a variety of dining layouts.

Bath linen – Include bath towels, hand towels, face towels, washcloths and fabric bath mats. Machine.

Budget – A budget is a plan that projects both the revenue that the hotel anticipates during the period covered by the budget and the expenses required to generate the anticipated revenues.

Buff – To smooth the floor with a low speed floor polishing.

Burnishing – Polishing the floor with a high speed floor machine to achieve an extremely high gloss.

Breakfast knob cards – Card hung by guests on the knobs of guest room doors to pre order breakfast at night so that the order reaches the staff on time and the guest is not disturbed for placing the order early in the morning.

Bonsai – Literally meaning “a plant in a tray” this refers to a tree or a plant whose typical growth in nature has been copied exactly in a miniature style within the confines of a container.

Capital budgets – These allocate the use of capital assets that have a life span considerably in excess of one year, these are assets that are not normally used up in day to day operations.

Cabana – A room adjacent to the pool area, with or without sleeping facilities, but with provision for relaxing on a sofa. It is mainly used for changing.

Coverlet – A bedspread that just covers the top of the dust ruffle but does not reach down to the floor.

Cleaning supplies – Cleaning agents and small cleaning equipment used in the cleaning of guestrooms and public areas in the hotel.

 Condominiums – hotels similar to timeshare hotels. The difference between the two lies in the type of ownership. Units in condominium hotels have only one owner instead of multiple owners, each for a limited amount of time each year.

Convention – A formal assembly of representatives sharing a common field of interest, come together to air their views.

Crib – Cot for babies, provided to guests on request.

Housekeeping and Other Departments

Coordination with Security Department

The coordination here is mainly concerned with the prevention of fire and thefts and the safekeeping of keys and lost property. There are so many security hazards on the floor that this liaison is particularly important and housekeeper cooperates by endeavoring to see that housekeeping staff are aware of the hazards. Housekeeping personnel should also report anything of a suspicious nature immediately to the security staff. However, a guest may take advantage of this privacy and may be engaged in certain illegal activities such as gambling, smuggling and so on. Housekeeping personnel have to be alert to this risk and seek the security department’s intervention if necessary. The security department is responsible for conducting training sessions on handling emergency situations for the staff. For example, they conduct fire drills to train staff to gear up in a fire emergency.

Coordination with Food and Beverage Department

The food and beverage department consist of both the service staff as well as the kitchen staff. The coordination of housekeeping with the restaurants and banquet halls is mainly concerned with the provision of linen and uniforms. The linen room supervisor, under the supervision of the executive housekeeper, needs to have sufficient stock of clean napery to meet the demands of the F & B department’s restaurant and banquet function. On his/her part, the restaurant manager should ensure that the time set for the exchange of linen is respected; that linen is not lost or misused; and that intimation of forthcoming banquet function is conveyed to housekeeping well in advance. Beside extra/special linen, housekeeping may also have to arrange for flower decorations for banquet.

Coordinating between two departments becomes particularly necessary in the case of room service, so that friction does not arise over matters such as waiters not collecting trays from guestrooms or room service staff leaving soiled trays in the corridors or causing extra work through careless spills on the carpet.

In many hotels, housekeeping also looks after pest control in restaurants, kitchens, and store attached to them. Both restaurant and kitchen staff required clean uniforms on a daily basis, for which they need to communicate with housekeeping. Provision of staff meals for housekeeping personnel, on the other hand, is the responsibility of the kitchen staff.

Coordination with Personnel Department

Housekeeping coordinates with the personnel department for recruitments of housekeeping staff, managing their salaries and wages, addressing indiscipline, following through grievance procedures, issuing identity cards for employee, running induction program, maintaining locker facilities, completing income tax formalities, effecting transfers, promotions, appraisals, and exit formalities, procuring trainees and organizing training sessions.

Coordination with Purchase Department

The purchase department procures out-stock items for housekeeping, such as guest supplies and amenities, stationery, linen, cleaning materials and equipment, and so on. Housekeeping should convey their requirement to purchase by way of advance notice in the form of a purchase requisition.

Coordination with Stores

Coordination with stores ensures the availability of day-to-day necessities of housekeeping. Larger hotels have a store attached to the housekeeping department that stock linen, supplies and so on. Smaller hotels may stock them in the general store, except for linen, which is sent to the housekeeping department on purchase. Communication with stores is by way of a requisition form, which housekeeping sends to stores when it requires certain items.

Housekeeping and Maintenance Department

Coordination with Maintenance Department

The maintenance department is responsible for the provision of engineering facilities that contribute to the comfort of guest and increase the efficiency of staff. The housekeeping department depends on maintenance to keep things in order. While carrying out their schedule work, housekeeping employee may find some deficiencies in the hotel facilities, such as faulty electric plugs, dripping faucets, leaking pipes, or malfunctioning air-conditioning units or WC cisterns.  The housekeeping department often takes the first steps in maintenance functions for which the maintenance is ultimately responsible. How ever, these deficiencies and faults should be immediately reported to maintenance. A need for urgent repairs is reported to maintenance over telephone and these requests are usually dealt with promptly if the rapport between the two departments is good.

There are various heads under which maintenance work is done:

Electrical work – Air conditioning and heating, fused bulbs, lights and lamps that are not functioning, defective plugs and plug points, short circuits and faulty geysers, refrigerator and mini bars fall under this category.

Boiler work – This is necessary to maintain a supply of hot water to guestrooms.

Mechanical work – This entails repair or replacement of any faulty equipment, such as vacuum cleaners, ice-cube machine and so on.

Plumbing work – this deals with faulty faucets, showers, drainage systems, water closets and so on.

Civil work – Any masonry work comes under this head.

Carpentry work – Broken or shaky furniture mirrors, and cupboards in less than peak condition and fresh woodwork are all part of this.

To look at it another way, in terms of frequency, urgency and complexity of the job, there are three levels of maintenance work:

1.   Routine maintenance

This involves maintenance activities that related to the general upkeep of the hotel. They occur on a regular basis, daily or weekly and required minimal training skills. These activities do not call for the making out of a formal work order and no records are maintained for them. Most of these routine maintenance activities are carried out by housekeeping. Proper care of many surfaces and materials by housekeeping personnel is the first step in the overall maintenance program for the property, such as : the replacement fused light bulbs, polishing of furniture, cleaning of windows and floor, and so on.

2.   Preventive maintenance

This is systematic approach to maintenance in which situations are identified and corrected on a regular basis to control cost and keep larger problems from occurring. It involves inspections, minor corrections and initiation of work orders.

·         Inspection – During the normal course of their duties, housekeeping personnel carry out inspection of most areas. Room attendants and supervisors regularly check for leaking faucets, chipped caulking around bathroom fixtures, fused bulbs, AC malfunction and so on.

·         Minor correction – Problem of a greater magnitude are avoided if minor repairs are attended to promptly. If communication between housekeeping and maintenance is efficient, minor repairs will be rectified by the maintenance department even as the room attendant is cleaning the guestroom.

·         Initiation of work order – Preventive maintenance sometimes identifies problems that are beyond the limited scope of minor corrections. The necessary work is then referred to the maintenance department through a formal work order system. The chief maintenance officer or the chief engineer then schedules this maintenance work to be done.

3.   Schedule maintenance

This involves maintenance work initiated by a work order. Work order is key elements in the communication and coordination between housekeeping and maintenance. The moment a housekeeping personnel detects a problem that requires attention from maintenance, she/he calls the housekeeping control desk, stating the nature of the problem, the kind of assistance required, and the location where it is required. The control desk fills out a work order form in triplicate, each copy being of a different color. One copy is sent to the executive housekeeper and two copies to maintenance. The chief engineer keeps one of these copies and gives the other to the tradesperson assigned to do the repair. When the job is completed, a copy of the tradesperson’s completed work order is sent to the executive housekeeper for acknowledgement of work satisfactorily completed. If this copy is not sent to the executive housekeeper within appropriate period of time, housekeeping issues another work order, which signals maintenance to provide a status report on the requested repair.

Nowadays, many hotels install a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS). Engineering and maintenance departments in most hotels keep records of all equipment operated by housekeeping personnel. The purpose is to provide documentation of all maintenance activity on a given piece of equipment.