How to Block and Allocate Hotel Rooms to Guests

Many guests wonder how do hotels assign rooms to guests or how a hotel guest reservation officer or a hotel front desk agent allocates different types of rooms to his guests. Today, we will learn room allocation procedures of a hotel in order to ensure guests needs are met concerning room requests on different room types and at the same time maximum flexibility is maintained. By reading this tutorial, you will get clear overview of hotel room arrangement procedure.

Hotel Room Allocation Procedure

hotel room allocation arrangement procedure

  1. Reservations will hand over the next day’s correspondences to the Front Desk. This correspondence will be further checked to ensure all details have been put into Computerized Reservation System or property management software like Opera.
  2. It is good practice to print out next day’s arrival list in details like check in and check out date of each guests, room type and block status, gender of the guests, list of VIP guests and their status, special arrangements requested like surprise birthday cake and gift, special instruction from guests like wheelchair for disabled guests or smoking or non smoking room requested etc., guests’ arrival time, previous stay record, special feature or amenity requested etc.
  3. All details are checked in the system before the room is allocated.
  4. Room allocation should be done mostly based on status of room reservation. For example, a guaranteed or prepaid reservation will always get priority over non granted reservation or reservation for walk in guest.
  5. Special requests have to be adhered to when blocking rooms for the guests, by looking into the Guest Profile and History. Such as Non Smoking Rooms should be blocked for guests requesting Non Smoking Rooms. Repeat guests should have the same room as previous stays or to their specific preference if any has been mentioned on earlier visits. Persons travelling together from the same company should have rooms as close to each other as possible unless requested otherwise.
  6. Suite/Accessible and any special requests bookings should be blocked by Reservation prior to confirming.
  7. Guaranteed Late Check-out rooms would be monitored closely, and Housekeeping should be informed in advance.
  8. If any Special Request or Amenities (e.g. Flowers. Fruits, etc.) are to be placed in the room, this should be ordered a day in advance and the departments responsible for placing them in the room informed. An alert should also be set so that room moves are minimal and the respective departments informed to make the respective changes.
  9. All Guests who have been guaranteed early Check-ins or who have Pre-Registered bookings should have appropriate rooms blocked for them and should be checked into the system from the day of their reservation (a day before their physical Check-In).
  10. General aspects like blocking a King Room for a Honeymoon Couple, a Twin room for two men travelling together or a family (of 4), or room close to the Elevator for Senior Citizens, Single Lady Traveler etc., should be taken into account while blocking rooms. Have good understanding on different hotel room types.
  11. Floors or sections would be blocked for Groups, Tours and Conventions, as much as possible.
  12. Don’t forget about disabled guest. They don’t only need special care but special arrangement should be made prior to their arrivals like arranging special amenities, giving special care, supplying equipment like wheelchair or hearing aid if needed and available.
  13. Special requests like allocating a room near elevator or wish to stay in upstairs or desire to have hill view or sea view room, should always give priority when available.
  14. Must be very careful while handling VIP reservation. If there is any system in your software to block heavily so that other reservation or front desk agent cannot allocate the same room to anyone, then apply it. Also make sure you have provided enough time to other departments like housekeeping to place VIP amenities or security department to check security issues carefully.
  15. Upgrade and downgrade of room have to be done according to the room availability and policy. Sometimes hotel has to offer room upgrade because of their own fault like wrong check in or check out date record, fault of a room etc.
  16. There are some repeat guests who always prefer certain floor or rooms. Based on previous record and if requested then always try to allocate such rooms to them. Read this tutorial: Hotel Guest Demands and Preference

So, if you consider above mentioned points then you should not find room allocation procedures very complicated. As a reservation officer or front desk agent you should be able to arrange rooms perfectly for your guests. For more amazing tutorials and our guides please click here:

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