FUNDAMENTALS IN LODGING
promoting the benefits and welfare of its
(PRELIMINARY EXAM)
Generally, hospitality is defined by the Oxford English
Dictionary as the “reception and entertainment of guests,
visitors or strangers with liberality and goodwill.
Therefore, the hospitality industry can be defined asthe
collection of businesses providing accommodation
and/or food and beverages to people who are away from
home regardless if it is for a long or short time (Baker,
Huyton, & Bradley, 2011).
In essence, the hospitality industry is made up of two (2)
distinct services (Jones, 2002):
• Accommodation – It involves the provision of
overnight accommodation for people staying away
from home.
• Food and Beverage – It involves the provision of
sustenance for people eating away from home or
not preparing their own meals.
The hospitality industry is a part of a larger group of
economic activities referred to as tourism. Tourism refers
to a collection of industries providing essential services,
such as transportation, food and beverage operations,
accommodation, and leisure activities, to the traveling
public (Baker, Huyton, & Bradley, 2011).
Categories of Hospitality Businesses
Hospitality establishments can fall on one (1) of the
following categories (Baker, Huyton, & Bradley, 2011):
▪ Profit-making Business – This includes
establishments that are set up with the
intention to earn a profit. Examples of this
include commercial restaurants and hotels,
motels, and inns.
▪ Non-profit-making Business – This includes
establishments that are not run mainly for
profit but are operated with the intention of
members.
A hotel is defined as an establishment offering sleeping
accommodation to any person who is willing to pay a
reasonable sum for the services and facilities provided
(Chan & Mackenzie, M., 2013). According to the
Department of Tourism (DOT), a hotel is defined as a
building, edifice or premises, or a completely independent
part thereof, which is used for the regular reception,
accommodation, or lodging of travelers and tourists and the
provision of services incidental thereto for a fee.
In the Philippines, DOT implements the National
Accommodation Standards for Hotels, Resorts, and
Apartment Hotels using the Star Grading System to classify
accommodation enterprises. It is a points-based rating
system that includes five (5) levels of accommodation
standards—from one (1) to five (5) stars— applicable to
hotels, resorts, and apartment hotels. The star bands for
hotels, resorts, and apartment hotels are as follows:
• One Star: These enterprises appeal to budget-
minded travelers. These offer a limited range of
facilities and services.
• Two Star: These enterprises appeal to tourists
seeking more than basic accommodation. These
offer expanded facilities and a higher level of
comfort.
• Three Star: These enterprises offer a very good
level of accommodation. There are more spacious
public areas, higher quality facilities, and a greater
range of services.
• Four Star: These enterprises are upscale in all
areas. Accommodation is refined and stylish.
Service is responsive, often including an extensive
array of facilities.
• Five Star: These enterprises reflect the
characteristics of luxury and sophistication. The
facilities are world class in every manner, and the
meticulous service exceeds all guest expectations.
Hotels can also be classified according to the following
Baker, Huyton, & Bradley, 2011): (
Target Market – A hotel can be classified based on the
type of guest it caters for. It can be any of the following:
Commercial Hotel – It offers food and accommodation
services to the traveling business people.
Tourist Hotel – It offers food and accommodation services
to people traveling for pleasure.
Resort Hotel – It offers food and accommodation services
to people traveling for pleasure but are usually found at
scenic spots.
A hotel can also be classified as residential or transient
based on the expected length of stay of its guests. A
residential hotel provides accommodation for guests
staying for a long time, while a transient hotel caters to
guests who stay for a short period.
• Location – A hotel can be classified according to
where it is located—for instance, city center hotel
or suburban hotel.
• Size – A hotel can be classified according to its
size. It can be a small, medium-sized, or large
hotel. The number of rooms within each
classification varies from one (1) country to
another. This enables hotels with similar sizes or
number of rooms to compare operating procedures
and statistical results.
• Facilities – Hotels also vary depending on the
standards of services and facilities these offer.
Hence, hotels can be any of the following:
• Full-service Hotel – It provides a wide selection
of guest services in addition to accommodation
such as health, sports, and business facilities.
destinations of the advanced economies (North America,
Europe, and Asia and the Pacific).
In the next two (2) decades, a large portion of the arrivals
will come from the countries of Asia and the Pacific, which
are expected to generate an average of 17 million additional
international arrivals annually. Europe follows having an
average of 16 million extra arrivals per year. The Americas
generate the remaining 10 million additional yearly arrivals
with 5 million, Africa with 3 million, and the Middle East
with 2 million (United Nations World Tourism
Organization [UNWTO], 2011).
Accommodation is the main product of a hotel and is the
largest revenue source in hotel business. Accommodation
products refer to rooms and other related products or
services that hotel guests will consume during their stay.
Concepts related to accommodation products are discussed
below.
Types of Rooms
Hotel rooms vary in terms of the amenities, the view from
it, and any extra features or services provided which add to
the overall hospitality experience of a guest. The table
below shows the common types of rooms available for
guest selection in hotels.

• Budget Hotel – It provides cheaper and more basic

guestrooms with limited services.
• Self-catering Hotel – It only provides
accommodation and no other service. Guests are
expected to prepare their own food, clean and tidy
their room, and do their own laundry, though some
offer a weekly cleaning service

Ownership – Another way to classify a hotel is by its

ownership. Hotel ownership can be as follows:

• Private – It is an independent hotel owned by a

person, a partnership, or a private company.
• A local group – It includes several hotels owned
by a local company.
• An international group – It includes a hotel that
is part of an international chain of hotels.

According to the released UNWTO long-term forecast,

Tourism Towards 2030, international tourist arrivals are
forecasted to reach 1.8 billion by 2030. The report stated
that international tourism will continue to grow for the next
two (2) decades.

The emerging economies (Asia, Latin America, Central

and Eastern Europe, Eastern Mediterranean Europe, the
Middle East, and Africa) will gain an average of 30 million
arrivals a year compared to 14 million in the traditional
Types of Beds
The following are the different types of bed used in hotels
to accommodate the needs of guests:
Room Rates
Hotels offer different room rates to attract various guests
who will provide repeat business. Room categories vary
from one (1) hotel to another. Some of these categories are
as follows (Chan & Mackenzie, 2013):
• Rack Rate – This refers to the standard rate
charged for room only in a hotel.
• Corporate Rate – This is a room rate offered to
executive personnel who are regular guests or
employees of a corporation that have a contract
rate with a hotel.
• Commercial Rate – This is a room rate offered to
the executive personnel of an enterprise who has
an infrequent visit to a hotel.
• Airline Rate – This is a rate agreed between an
individual airline and a hotel as determined by the
volume of business a hotel obtains from such
airline.
• Group Rate – This is a room rate given to
bookings for a large group of people and is usually
booked by travel agents.
• Children’s Rate – This is a rate charged to
children at certain age. Each hotel has a specific
age limit for children to stay with their parents in
the same room free of charge or at a minimal rate.
• Package Rate – This is a room rate that includes
goods and services, which hotels designed to
attract guests during low sales periods.
• Complimentary Rate – This is a rate wherein a
guest is assessed with no charge for staying in a
hotel. This may be granted to tour directors, local
dignitaries, or executives from the hotel’s head
office itself.
Hotel guests can be classified according to the following
(Chan & Mackenzie, 2013):
Trip purpose
Leisure Travelers – They are individuals who travel to
engage in leisure activities, outdoor recreation, relaxation,
visiting friends and relatives, or attending sports or cultural
events.
• Business Travelers – They are individuals who
travel to conduct business, attend
meetings/workshops, and engage in selling or
purchasing products.
Numbers
• Free Independent Travelers (FITs) – They are
travelers who purchase their own accommodation
and make their own travel arrangements.
• Group Inclusive Tours (GITs) – They are tourists
who travel together on package tours with
accommodation and sometimes meals. They also
tend to spend less and budget their spending
allowance.
Origin
• Domestic Travelers – They are local residents
who stay at a hotel for special occasions and
holidays.
• International Travelers – They are residents of
another country visiting another country for
leisure or work purposes.
A hotel is normally divided into several departments,
where each department is responsible for a certain area of
work. The larger a hotel is, the more complex the
departments become.
Duties of Key Executives
The following are the duties of the key executives in a hotel
(Chan & Mackenzie, M., 2013):
• General Manager (GM)
The main responsibilities of the GM include the following:
• Providing leadership to the management team.
• Coordinating the work of all departments.
• Participating in the formulation of hotel policies
and strategies.
• Leading hotel staff in meeting financial,
environmental, and community responsibilities;
and assuming full responsibilities for the overall
performance of a hotel.
 • Resident Manager
The main responsibilities of the RM include the following:
– Holding a major responsibility in developing and
executing plans developed by a hotel’s owner(s),
general manager, and other members of the
management team.
– Checking on operations, providing feedback, and
offering assistance when needed.
– Completing, reviewing, and summarizing
statistical reports and sharing it with the GM; and
– Assuming responsibilities for the daily operations
and management of a hotel.
Functions of Major Departments
The following are the functions of the major departments in
a hotel (Chan & Mackenzie, M., 2013):
• Rooms Division – It is responsible for managing
the core products of a hotel—the rooms.
• Engineering – It is responsible for the
maintenance of a hotel’s physical plant, including
heating, air conditioning, refrigeration, lighting,
and transportation (elevator) systems, and for
overseeing all mechanical equipment.
• Security – It is responsible for implementing
procedures that aim to protect the safety and
security of hotel guests, employees, and the hotel
itself. This department is also responsible for
taking care of lost and found items of guests.
Examples of this department’s responsibilities
include monitoring surveillance equipment,
patrolling hotel premises, and maintaining
security alarm systems.
• Human Resources – It is responsible for functions
such as employee recruitment, selection, and
development, design and review of compensation
patterns, and compliance with government labor
regulations.
• Food and Beverage – It is responsible for
providing food and beverage services to hotel
guests and employees through a variety of outlets
and services. Some examples of these services in
a hotel are restaurants, banquet service, room
service, and lounge bar.
• Sales and Marketing – The main responsibility of
this department is to create customers, which
means to have products or services that people
want. It is also responsible for emphasizing all
services and features that make a hotel unique
compared to other properties.
• Accounting – Aside from bookkeeping and
financial reporting, a hotel also depends on this
department for advice and guidance on how to
increase profitability through better controls and
asset management.
Quality Management Approaches
The earliest advances in quality approaches started from the
manufacturing industry, which hospitality organizations
adapted. Although in the hospitality industry, there is a
need to link these approaches on the delivery of services to
guests, unlike the manufacturing industry where products
are tangible in nature. The following provides a brief
overview of the different systems used for quality
management (Lashley, 2000)
• Quality Inspection – An actual output of a product
or service is checked against a standard
specification. For instance, the cleanliness of
guestrooms in a hotel is inspected against the set
standards of cleanliness by an Executive
Housekeeper. In this approach, any defective
product is sent for rework. Reworking a faulty
product or service, however, is not always possible
considering the nature of the hospitality industry.
• Quality Control – Quality is designed into the
detailed specification in the production of
products and services through detailed standards.
For instance, if a food is about to be released from
the kitchen, a quality controller checks its
conformity to the set standards. If something does
not conform (e.g., doneness, thickness), then it
should not be served to guests. This approach still
covers the detection and adjustment of defects,
which may not improve quality, but it shows when
quality is not existent.
• Quality Assurance – Quality is designed into the
process in such a way that faults cannot occur. For
instance, to assure quality in the provision of
services to guests in a hotel, it begins from the
process of recruitment where employees are
selected according to the qualifications of a job.
Then they undergo training, provided with support
services and supervision once deployed, and
undergo performance evaluation. In terms of food
products, quality is assured by following the
standard processes from the purchasing stage up to
the service. In this approach, faults are corrected
as they happen. It involves the development of a
document and planned quality system and requires
total organization commitment and involvement
of all employees in the process. The problem with
this approach, however, is that it may deliver
consistently defect- free products and services, but
the standard may not be what customers want.
 • Total Quality Management – The focus of this
approach is on the customer and the satisfaction of
customer needs. It is fully directed toward
customer satisfaction and the elimination of any
hindrance to the provision of customer
satisfaction. People in an organization are vital to
successfully achieving. Customer satisfaction.
Employee training, motivation, and empowerment
are important. While quality assurance establishes
control processes, total quality management
improves these processes by considering the
factors that satisfy guests.

These approaches are not mutually exclusive. This

means that one (1) approach builds on another, and quality
programs often include a combination of all these
approaches. Although hospitality organizations can develop
their own quality systems, many find that these recognized
systems are helpful as frameworks which can be worked
on.

Employees as Internal Customers

Hotel services are rated based on multiple criteria such as

guest room amenities, recreational facilities, housekeeping
standards, and décor. However, the service orientation and
professionalism of hotel staff members are the primary
criteria. These include both the ability of employees to
meet guests’ needs through their knowledge and
interpersonal skills and the employees' professional attire
and grooming.

In that case, employees in hotels play a significant role in

the provision of quality service. Each employee directly or
indirectly affects the service delivered in a hotel. Many
hotel companies believe that a positive workplace is a
fundamental aspect of an organizational culture. Hence,
they strive to become employers of choice by providing
better wage and benefit packages, more development
opportunities, increased recognition, and mentoring. The
idea of internal customer suggests that more satisfied
employees are likely to show positive job performances and
cooperate towards achieving the goals of an organization
(Barrows, 2012).