Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Section Page
1. Introduction ……………………………………………………………………. 3
1.1. Objectives …………………………………………………………………….. 3
1.2. Scopes ………………………………………………………………………… 3
1.3. Acknowledgements …………………………………………………………... 3
1.4. Assumptions …………………………………………………………………. 3
1.5. Background …………………………………………………………………... 4
2. Housekeeping …………………………………………………………………. 4
2.1. Room cleaning ………………………………………………………………. 4
4. Maintenance ………………………………………………………………….. 7
4.1. Furniture care and maintenance ……………………………………………… 7
6. Conclusion …………………………………………………………………… 11
This report provides an analysis and evaluation of some areas of the operations within the
hospitality industry, using Rydges on Bell as a case study. Problems that are inevitably
faced by accommodation businesses are discussed, as well as viable suggestions on how
these can be effectively dealt with. The areas focussed on are guest room cleaning, laundry
quality and laundry inventory in the house keeping sector. Furthermore, other areas such as
interior furniture maintenance, fire procedures of the facility care and emergency
maintenance sections have also been observed and evaluated.
The report finds the current position of Rydges on Bell as stable and reasonably operative
in terms of adherence to standard procedures in housekeeping, maintenance. However,
there are several areas that require further consideration and corrective action by
management. The report investigates the current operations and existing practices at the
hotel. Consequently, some problems have been identified and addressed suggestively.
Thus, recommendations are made accordingly.
Recommendations discussed, include:
Guest rooms should be completely cleaned. Critical areas are window corners,
toilet curtains, drink spills on refrigerator doors.
Laundry quality should be better controlled to claim causes of damage, defects from
delivery.
Portable fire extinguishers would benefit the hotel if they were to be placed between
guest rooms along corridors, as well as in the elevator.
1.1. Objectives:
The aim of this report is to analyse some areas in the operations of accommodation
industry. For better performance and improvement, the identified problems will be
addressed and analysed in a manner of contributive suggestions and solutions. The
students’ pair, Vinh Nguyen and Kym Feore have practically worked at the hotel, and have
subsequently conducted individual observations, debriefed with the executive housekeeper
over the concerned areas. The students are in an effort to address the issues confidently in
view of effective management in the industry.
1.2. Scope:
This report will discuss on the frequent problems and issues within the hotel. Thus, guest
room cleaning, laundry quality and laundry inventory control in the house keeping section
have been observed and will be analysed in thorough discussion. In addition, other areas
such as interior furniture care & maintenance and fire equipment; fire procedures and
prevention of the facility engineering and emergency maintenance sections have been
looked at and evaluated.
1.3. Acknowledgements:
In order to complete this academic report, the pair students have debriefed with the
executive housekeeping manager of the hotel for an insight of current and existing
procedures and practices. Library materials, academic journals, websites and facts have
been resorted to strongly back up the ideas, suggestions. The students appreciated advice
from the executive housekeeper and front office staff, as well as the valuable insight of the
hospitality operations provided by the housekeeping staff.
1.4. Assumptions:
It is assumed that this report serves the purpose to provide suggestions to potentially
improve management practices and that the information resources are relevant to the
components of the report. However, this report, within its work frame limitations may not
cover other areas which are also related and worth discussing. It only focuses on the said
1.5. Background:
Rydges on Bell Preston Melbourne, rated the four star hotel establishment which is “the
beautifully resort styled landscape garden” (Rydges on Bell Preston website, 2007) has
been used as the case study in this report. Initiated solutions have been based on and
viewed from existing issues in the said hotel.
Jones (2005), states that a hotel’s success is a departmental contribution of the sales and
marketing, the front office, human resources and the management. There are other
departments such as the housekeeping, facility engineering and emergency maintenance
where their significant work from the backyard transports a huge part of commitment to the
success of the lodging establishment. Without doubt, effective management in these
sections can result in complete satisfaction to guests.
2. Housekeeping
Apparently, “guest room cleaning is a very important job because guests look for a clean
and pleasant environment” (Pappa, Nischke & Schappert, 1995, p.26). However, there are
some issues worth noting in housekeeping at the Rydges Hotel. It has been seen that glass
windows at both wall sides where curtains cover over are not well dusted and cleaned.
Housekeepers usually use a feather hand broom to quickly dust only the glass of middle
windows, not with a cloth, dampened with glass cleaner as required. The windows are left
un-cleaned in both corner sides, covered with the curtains where dust settles for a long
time. Also, the toilet plastic curtain needs more care for cleanliness. Besides, the
refrigerator often has drink spills in edges and over door surface to clean as necessary.
These issues are often overlooked, most probably due to temptation to finish early as staff
are allowed to leave when their allocated rooms are finished being serviced. It is critical
that the supervisor on duty should inspect these areas such as windows, bed headboard top
rail, and table & nightstand drawers, under beds, floor tile edges in toilet, even though it is
the housekeepers’ duty to have these areas spotless.
Hotel managers confide to the author, Jones that “choosing to outsource in commercial
laundry service has advantages for two reasons, convenience and real estate costs” (2005,
p.353). On the other hand, “the hotel does not want to take the responsibility of having yet
another large department in their organization” (Jones, 2005, p.355). However, this has
certain disadvantages in controlling the laundry quality.
Problems are only found when room attendants make use of the items when it is too late to
claim as to how, by whom and when the damage or defects have been caused. During 3-day
work experience, such incidents happened that when the housekeeper put on the bed sheets
and blankets it was found that they had holes and were mechanically stained though the
items still looked relatively new. These damaged sheets and blankets with holes can of
course, not be fixed and are costly to replace. This is a frequent problem that occurs during
room servicing. It is suggested that quality control be implemented, such that the items are
inspected upon delivery and records are made by the housekeeper on every incident.
Damaged items should be isolated in a separate bag and reported to the staff in charge for
controlling purposes.
4. Maintenance
Facility maintenance is a huge department which is responsible for maintaining exterior and
interior facilities of the hotel (Hayes and Ninemeier, 2007). In this report, the interior
furniture maintenance will be addressed. As the part of the hotel’s style, according to Jones
and Lockwood, 2006, interior furniture such as beds, tables, chairs, cabinets will have a
significant impact on the guests’ perceptions and enjoyment of that stay. Therefore, to keep
and maintain the beautiful and costly furniture with its standard finishing and design is a
critical job.
Once the fire equipment have been fully installed, it must be a strict practice that
maintenance staff should conduct inspections of the equipment on a regular basis to ensure
that all is in working condition, if anything is found not working properly or out of order,
make sure it must be fixed or replaced immediately. Attention should be paid to dry
chemical fire extinguishers for expiry date, and that fire alarms work well.
In summary, a complete checklist of fire equipment must be inspected and controlled by the
maintenance department (Kansas Buildings Fire Safety Handbook, 2006). It is no use if
equipment is there in place but is not functioning when needed. As a result, a regular audit
on fire equipment needs to be done in order to take corrective actions if necessary. For
instance, Rydges Hotel has installed adequate fire systems, is well-equipped with the
required tools and equipment as per legislative requirements. In view of better fire
prevention, Rydges Hotel still encounters some outstanding problems and the suggestions
are put forward in the later part 5.2 of this report.
Obviously, the importance of fire drills for staff is of no doubt. It has been experienced that
panic may cause injury and damages more serious than that caused by the fire (NSW
Emergency Fire Procedures, 1981). It is also emphasized that “fire prevention is the best
form of fire protection. Fire prevention is largely common sense and is the best guarantee
against fires.” (NSW Emergency Fire Procedures, 1981).
Effectively, at Rydges on Bell Preston, all staff has been trained in fire drills. The fact tells
that a fire in the 2nd floor student kitchen happened recently in a late afternoon of
September, 2007. The staff and fire fighting team successfully evacuated all the guests out
to safety and that they were able to control and put out the fire. It has proved that their
reactions were favorable in an emergency situation. However, for better fire prevention,
the following suggestions should be considered by Rydges Hotel’s management:
Portable fire extinguishers in between guest rooms along corridors need to be
installed on walls.
A fire extinguisher should also be placed in the elevator for emergency situations
for quick acting on the spot.
The reason is that Rydges Hotel has only two fire hose reels on each floor which are
stationed at the west wing rear and the other at the north wing front. The other two wings
have none on site. These are intended for trained staff use only. Also, it may take a longer
time to reach affected areas while portable fire extinguishers, if available can be used to act
immediately within hand reach in event of small fires. Furthermore, it was found that all
6. Conclusion:
The commonly encountered problems in some areas of the housekeeping, facility and
emergency maintenance of the lodging industry have been addressed above and reasonable
suggestions have been discussed. It is stressed that management should take corrective
measures to continually maintain and keep good practices running at an optimal standard
in their organization in order to minimize and control the problems. The final goal of such
strategic management is to run the organization in smooth operations to better provide
excellent service to guests and to bring in high revenues and establish a good reputation. It
has been known that successful organizations result from managing and implementing
efficient business practices. Thus, the best management knows how to manage and control
the problems at minimum impact.
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Word count: 2997
8. Appendix 2:
Plus
Less
Kappa, M.M, Nitsche, A & Schappert, P.B. 1995, Managing House Keeping Operations,
Educational Institute of the American Hotel & Motel Association, U.S.A.
Hayes, D.; Ninemeier, J. 2007, Hotel Operations Management, 2nd edn, Prentice Hall, New
Jersey 07458
Jones, P.; Lockwood A. 2006, The Management of Hotel Operations, Thompson Learning,
U.K
Dormitory & Hotel/Motel Inspections Checklist – 06D, Kansa Buildings Fire Safety
Handbook, 2006, 3rd Edition,
New South Wales Hospitals Planning Advisory Centre, Sydney Australia, July 1981
Emergency Fire Procedures, National Library of Australia