International Hotel Management -5HO510

Title: Study of the case of the Hilton hotel and analysis of key management factors

Name: Ilias Symon Kappis

Module leader: Michalis Konstantelos

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Content
Introduction .......................................................................................................... 3

Choice of Hilton hotels ......................................................................................... 4

Reception at Hiltons hotels ................................................................................... 5

Reservation deparment at Hilton hotels ............................................................... 7

Cleanliness at Hilton hotels .................................................................................. 9

Conclusions ........................................................................................................ 10

Bibliography ....................................................................................................... 11

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Introduction
The present work has been the subject of studying Hilton Hotels, in particular
management areas such as customer reception, booking department and cleanliness.
The research interest in these hotels lies in their global reach and the plethora of
services they provide. Thus, the structure of the work is as follows:

In the first part, the reasons for choosing the hotels that are mainly their global scale
and the quality of their services are mentioned. Reference is also made to their
wealthy staff as well as to their visitors, who belong to both businessmen and
leisure guests.

In the second part, reference is made to the field of customer reception. Initially,
some introductory data is provided for the department's operation and its
contribution to customer satisfaction. It is then stated that the reception department
at Hilton hotels operates, the responsibilities assumed by an assistant host, while it
becomes evident that in this area particular importance is given

In the third part, the reservations section is mentioned. Initially, there is a report on
the function, staff and objectives of the booking department, one of which is to
achieve the optimum occupancy of the rooms. Here are some of the services offered
at the Hilton Reservation department such as customer rewards, redeeming Hilton
Honors and the ability to modify or cancel reservations online.

The fourth part mentions the cleaning services belonging to the functions of the
floor management sector. Initially, there are some remarks about cleanliness and
hygiene, followed by the cleaning services provided at Hilton Hotels.

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Selection of Hilton Hotels
For the needs of our research we have chosen to study a Hilton Hotel case.
This choice was made given both the global scale of these hotels and the quality of
the services they provide. In particular, and in order to understand the extent of
Hilton's activities, the following are listed (Rooney, 2011):

 Hilton Hotels & Resorts is one of the world's largest hotel brands and
full service resorts
 Since 2017, there have been more than 570 Hilton Hotels & Resorts in
85 countries and regions in six continents that are either managed by
the parent company or assigned to independent agencies (U.S. News
&& World Report, 2017).
 Hotels target both business travelers and leisure travelers.
 They are mainly located in large city centers, near airports, conference
centers and popular holiday destinations all over the world.
 It employs approximately 169,000 staff (Statista, 2019).

From the aforementioned we can see the intense research interest for a
thorough study of the hotel. Subsequently, the management areas selected to be
extensively analysed include Reception and the Reservation section, while reference
will be made to cleaning services.

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Reception at Hilton hotels

Customer reception is of major importance for every hotel unit because it

gives the first impression to the customer and also because it serves the customer
throughout their stay. Thus, reception contributes to the degree of success of the
unit, and also customer satisfaction relies on it.

The workload of the employees at customer reception is depended on the size

of each unit. In large hotel units, such as Hilton Hotels, there is a division of work,
and various services such as arrivals, departures, and so on (Fioraki, Drosou, &
Theodorou, 2008) can be found.

This is therefore an area that the hotel management has to pay particular
attention. Also, the selection of people to fill this area is a complex process as the
most suitable for the position should be chosen. All of these reasons highlight the
choice to develop the hospitality sector at Hilton hotels.

At Hilton hotels, as expected, special attention is given to the reception area.

The aim of this area is to offer visitors an excellent check-in and check-out
experience throughout their stay. For this purpose, employees are prepared by
means of seminars, while the qualifications include excellent communication with
customers, prior experience, a high level of IT skills, interpersonal and
communication skills, accountability, foreign language skills, and so on. The
following is the work done by an assistant host (Caterer.com, 2019):

 supervising the entire Front Office function and maintaining high standards
 Search for guest comments and make functional improvements
 Confirmation that the reception department operates with a sales stop and
promotes the hotel brand confidence system

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  Maximizing room capacity at the best prices and using sales techniques to
promote hotel services
 Define the objectives of the host service, work schedules, budgets, policies
and procedures
 Monitoring the appearance, standards and performance of the Front Office
team members with emphasis on education and teamwork
 Ensuring that team members have the required knowledge of hotel products,
services, prices and policies as well as knowledge of the location and are
continually trained to learn and understand policies and practices
 Maintaining good communication and working relationships with all hotel
departments
 Monitoring staffing levels to meet business requirements
 Managing staff performance issues in line with company policies and
procedures
 Help in recruiting, managing, educating and developing the reception group
 Action in accordance with policies and procedures when work is done on
residential and property management systems
 Assistance to other departments when deemed necessary

As can be seen from the host of responsibilities in the reception department, it

is clear that customer reception is one of the most important concerns for Hilton
hotels.

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Hilton hotel booking section
The basic function of the reservation department is to communicate directly
with both travel agents and online reservation pages as well as individual customers
in order to arrange room bookings. Many hotels have linked the booking department
to the reception or have their own web site where guests check the prices, any offers
and the availability of the date they want.

The aim of the reservation department is clearly to serve customers, but

emphasizes the hotel's objectives, which is the maximum occupancy of its rooms.
Further, emphasis is also put on good communication relationships and on the ways
of promoting the hotel.

The department of hotel reservations, such as Hilton, has a group of

employees, usually composed of: 1. Head of department, 2. Reservation employee,
3. Online booking employee, 4. Individual reservations employee, and 5. Employee
of processing, archiving and reservation control (Fioraki, Drosou, & Theodorou,
2008).

Hilton Hotels in the booking department also offer plenty of services and
promotions, as well as reservations made by all means such as the hotel website,
major web sites, agencies and direct contact with the call center or hotel of the
respective location .
In the area of reservations, the following are worth mentioning (Hilton, 2019):

 Customer Rewards and promotional codes: For regular customers,

Hilton Hotels offer deals in catering, entertainment, car rental,
accommodation, and more. in the form of a discount usually up to
25%. Furthermore, promotional codes are a special set of characters
that accompany the hotel's promotions. They should be introduced
while customers choose their stay or someother than the services
provided and receive the corresponding discount or offer.

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  Online Booking Modification: You can modify or cancel reservations
online. Customers can enter the booking section and modify their
arrival data. Furthermore, customers may even cancel their booking,
and that cancellation of a reservation may result in a cancellation
penalty or the deposit may not be refunded.
 Upgrade your reservation: Customers can use Hilton Honors to
upgrade their rooms to a premium room or suite. The upgrade is
automatically made in case of availability and the number of points
required to redeem the upgraded rooms varies depending on the room,
hotel, reservation date and date of stay.
In addition to the aforementioned, there are plenty of other services and
facilities in the bookings sector. Hilton hotels show to fully meet the expectations of
their customers and can cover all types of visitor.

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Cleanliness at Hilton Hotels

The cleanliness of hotels is part of the floor segment. This is a very important
area because you are subject to strict principles and regulations in case of non-
observance of the planned measures for the safety of visitors' health.
The cleaning department includes work such as room cleanliness (general
cleaning of the room and bathroom, change of bed linen etc.) and cleaning of
communal areas such as stairs, waiting rooms, etc. In the hotels that have a
swimming pool, the cleaning department may be responsible for cleaning it, but the
task is mainly carried out by special crews (Fioraki, Drosou, & Theodorou, 2008).
In Hilton hotels, particular emphasis is placed on the cleanliness of the
premises. The global reputation of these hotel units does not allow for deviations
from the hygiene rules.
Cleaning staff include room cleaners - maids, babysitters, pool and outdoor
cleaners as well as public area cleaners. The required qualifications for the position
of the cleaner are adherence to the hygiene rules and the knowledge of the English
language is also required. Some of the major points of the Hilton Hotels in the
cleaning sector are the following (Hilton, 2019):

 Strict adherence to all hygiene rules

 Daily cleaning of rooms and the possibility of repeated cleaning if
necessary
 Providing the customers with personal and room cleanliness items
 Surveillance of cleaning staff and continuous training through special
seminars
 Clothing cleaning services etc

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Conclusions
Each hotel unit is in charge of managing the various sectors. Depending on
the scope of the unit, as well as other factors such as the location and tourist season,
importance is given to certain specific areas in order to achieve the best results in
terms of completeness.
Hilton hotels are world renowned and have hundreds of thousands of human
resources. Therefore, all areas of management are important.
In the present study, we have chosen to refer to the areas of customer
reception, booking and cleaning. The reasons chosen in these areas are because they
are directly related to customer satisfaction and can maximize the excellent services
of these hotel units. Furthermore, all three areas can highlight the hotel's
marketingpolicy, which undoubtedly provides unique service-level services.

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Bibliography
Caterer.com. (2019). Assistant Reception Manager - Hilton Nottingham.
Ανάκτηση από https://www.caterer.com/job/assistant-reception-management/hilton-
job85881388

Hilton. (2019). My Reservations. Ανάκτηση από

https://www3.hilton.com/en/index.html?WT.srch=1&WT.mc_id=zIMDPDA0EME
A1MB2PSH3PPC_Google_search4cid123327273_aid26369168193_mb_kkwd-
184524595815Brand_TopLevel6MULTIBR7el&utm_source=Google&utm_mediu
m=ppc&utm_campaign=paidsearch&campaignid=123327273&adgroupi

Rooney, J. (2011). Brand Power To The People: J&J Takes Lead In Forbes
Ranking. Forbes .

Statista. (2019). Number of Hilton Worldwide employees from 2013 to 2018

(in thousands)*. statista .

U.S. News & World Report. (2017). Best Hilton Hotels & Resorts. U.S. News
& World Report. .

Fioraki Μ., Drosou Μ., &Theodorou Α. (2008). Hotel unit functions.Athens:

Ο.Ε.D.Β.

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