[chinaman]

this is just a rough estimate... i want to know when hotels consistently hit 90ish% occupancy, is it the norm that guests do not get their rooms at the promised check-in time?
to me, if rooms are all done by 3pm then we're paying too much for labor and the departmrnt is running inefficiently. but when guests consistently dont get rooms even at 6pm its kind of ridiculous... standing from a guests point of view.

so i just want to know whether this is happening to a few or many others... whether this has become the trend?

cheers,
CC

[rchnsm]

What time is your hotel check in policy? From my place, check in time is 2 pm, so we need to finish all the BTB before or at this time. For the OC rooms, we did the same... surely we know that it is inefficiency, but to satisfy the guests. Anyway, we still got some complaints about late service, but just keep my ear blind sometime...

[chinaman]

oh man if you can get most of your rooms done at 2pm then i applaud you.

my last hotel, check in was 3pm... check out is at 12 noon but sadly many GSAs gave out latecheck outs til 1pm just in hopes to get on the guests good side to receiving a compliment... competition is stiff in hong kong and everyone wants to step on each other... well, most of them not everyone. not to mention loyalty members who gets to stay in their rooms til 4pm, 6pm, and 8pm... and there are LOTS of them.

but, at the end of the day, the stress level of the staff seems to mean nothing to the directors... its all bout the bottom line, to them. and if they can raise it by lowering labor costs, why not? theyre only here for 1-3 years tops anyway... so i would understand why they care very little about the people... who will prob be working here for the next 10-20 years...

[bostgwen]

Lucky in Egypt labour is very cheap!!! Like today, I had 107 arrivals and 120 departures!!!
Some sections 7 rooms to do between 12 and 2 PM!!! I ask the people who have no arrivals to help or I take a trainee for 2 hours to help in that section!!!

[chinaman]

7 rooms in 2 hours... 7 check out rooms though? that is a terrible thing haha... i must say, that is very stressful. we use to deal with 300+ in and 300+ outs on a day to day basis with RA manpower covering only about 80-85% of the rooms. lobby was a sight to behold... guests lining up from reception desk allllll the way to the elevators that were located on the other side of the lobby.

you mentioned some sections have 7 rooms to do from 12 to 2... so are your rooms all preblocked before guests arrive? or were GSA not trained to not hold rooms to clean all in one section? i think you can work around this problem, this way you wont have to send your RAs running around the hotel so much.

when im on the reception desk, i always request lower floors be cleaned first... that way, when guests come later on in the day you have some bargaining power... "if you NEED to check in now i have rooms available, but if you want a room with a better view i can hold your luggages for you and you can come back n check in later with a better room"... this way itll ease off the tension in hskp.

any tips on your end?

cheers!

[wan]

whoa, nice to know the this topics..
my hotel usually runs between 90-95 % with daily arr and dep 100++..

and basically, all the guest that i have would not actually care on the check in time of 2pm.
that`s would be one of the main issues that i believe all hotel facing as well - depends on how we resolve.

chinaman's suggestions is kinda nice and workable though - but proper co-ordination between the front desk and housekeeping.

[waynedarwin]

Let me ask a question here. Room devision is new to me, so forgive me, please. If a guest makes a reservation, can you ask "estimated arrival time"? I mean, if 20 guests arrive late, let's say 6pm, wouldn't it be easier to distribute labor of the HK dept.?

Wayne

[chinaman]

wan - you are absolutely correct. majority of the guests couldnt care less what time check in is and the housekeeping issue certainly is bothering many people.

BuT! if the time is 1:30pm and your check in time is at 2:00pm... dont use phrases such as "well you cant check in now because our check in time is at 2:00pm" because you know they will be ticked off at 2 cause they probably still wont be able to get their room. you can only use these phrases at like 10am. so as you said, sometimes it is up to the front desk team on how they persuade the guests to not feel taken advantage of and not feel like they are not cared for. but the people i found most problematic before the check-in time are caucasion american corporate guests (im not racist, just honest) who are more often than not, not understanding, and EXPECT and DEMAND forcefully a room before the check-in time. AFTER the check-in time, the Singaporeans are the last people on earth you want to see. they really know how to mess with your head and use techniques/questions to direct you to agree with them... so dealing with these people are a pain in most cases. but at the end of the day, our fault for not allowing on-time check in.


wayne- depending on the SOP of your hotel, reservations should ask for est. arrival time and flight number (depending on location this info will be more accurate than others). for example, a hong kong hotel will find that their est. arr. time are accurate because guests already know which flight they are taking. if its a hotel in toronto, a lot of the guests are driving in from the states so the numbers are someone inaccurate. BUT, given today's vast number of booking channels this task of asking est. arr. time because much harder. only guests booking directly through you and an res agent will probably provide such information, others will just skip this step. i think some people are also hesitant to give this info because in their minds, they think that "if i say im coming in at 6... maybe they wont have my room rdy if i decide to come a little earlier... maybe ill just tell them i dont know." but yea, if housekeeping knew then coordinating the ROOM TYPES to be cleaned will become more efficient... sometimes there are enough clean rooms, just not enough non-smoking room, or not enough King beds, etc etc.

one thing that is really frustrating are chinese travel agents... and i dont know what the hell the sales team are doing, but they really screw the operation over on a daily basis. they book EVERY guests to require 2 twin beds (literally)... of course, on check in we'd waste 15 minutes explaining to the guest why this happened and housekeeping to waste half an hour changing the bed types in the room... but of course... the majority of the sales people are always going to be sales people.

[saveliy]

Funny thing is that when Russian tourists came to us ( Kiev) they always tell like this..i want have room for 1 night.. lets say I want check on 7 am on 15/02 and I will check out 9 pm on 16/02 and I pay for 1 night… and it is so hard always explain that that for such thing you need pay for 2 or 3 nights… and it is happens again and again(((
we have 30 rooms and always try that rooms be ready at 13 00

[landscapelady]

our hotel has a 3pm check in and all of our room cleaners finish at 4 pm. The majority are finished by 3 - plenty for the guests that want to check at 3 anyway. The room cleaners start at 8 am and usually there are enough checkouts for them to start that early so they can get in 7 to 8 hours a day. We keep a night shift room cleaner on for those late checkouts. On weekends they work 9 to 4 or 5. What hours do your room cleaners work?

[chinaman]

dear landscapelady,

that is impressive.

im wondering though, how many credits and rooms do each RA complete?

what star rating is the hotel, avg size of room and are there a lot of glass/mirrors in the room?

is every single room inspected before it is sold?

and how many rooms and RA are there in your hotel?

but every room completed by 4pm is quite amazing.

Cheers