HOTELIER LIFE

INTRODUCTION

Bell Desk is responsible for handling and delivering the guest luggage to their respective room. They are responsible to escort guests into their rooms while carrying luggage or help to move any baggage if a guest needs it.

Bell desk is a prolonged arm of the front office department. It has a small desk /counter in the hotel lobby that is close to the main entrance of the hotel. There are many activities which need to be carried out at the time of arrival of the guest, throughout the stay and during the departure of the guest which needs to be carried out and move from one place to another from the front desk, in order to help the guest with his/her luggage.

The bell desk should be located in a clear perspective and view of the reception, cashier, and especially to the doorman where he can easily give a signal to the bell boy when the guest arrives in a hotel. Further, it is very significant that the bell desk is located close to the luggage area or entrance of the luggage room.

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The proper location of the bell desk plays a crucial role in the effectual coordination with the front desk, i.e. from the arrival to the departure of guests where they assist the guest with the luggage, escorting the guest to the room, and endorse a room discrepancy report.

FUNCTION OF BELL DESK

Luggage handling

Luggage handling of the guest is performed during numerous occasions i.e. on arrival, during stay when there is a change of room due to several reasons and during departure. During arrival bell boy carries the luggage of the guests from the car to the lobby and further assist guest luggage to the assigned room, this venture is called “up bell activity’’. When the bell boy carries the luggage of the guest from room to lobby and further assists the guest luggage to the car during the time of departure, this venture is called ‘’ down bell activity’’.

The luggage of the guest was collected from the room upon request. The luggage which is left or kept in a hotel by the guest must register and have to make an entry in the book in order to maintain a record. Bell boy makes two luggage tickets, one ticket to the guest, and another one is attached to the luggage for future reference.

Paging

Apart from luggage handling the bell desk is also responsible and accountable for paging a guest. The paging consists of a system of locating the guest in the hotel. On many occasions, the in-house guest who expects a phone call or sometimes visitors but they don’t want them to come in the room, so they might decide to visit in a public area such as the lobby, coffee shop, restaurant, bar, etc. of the hotel or may prefer to go out of the hotel.

In this kind of case, the hotel makes a request to the guest to inform about his location or whereabouts through a location form. This form is being kept inside the stationery folder in the room also at the information section of the desk. The current location is properly available in the software of the hotel which is called a locator.

Generally, it is filled in by the guest but numerous times it may be filled in by the hotel staff on guest instructions. The filled location form is placed in the key and mail racks. This information is also forwarded operator, the guest could personally inform or the front desk could do so. The aim of the form is to attribute the area of paging and save time.

Mail and Message Handling

The bell desk’s function is added to handle and distribute mail, courier, and message received by the front desk in the absence of the guests to their rooms. Conjointly distributing the newspapers and magazines etc. to various types of rooms and to the specific areas within the hotel and also to maintain a record of the same which is performed by the bell desk.

Delivery of newspaper

According to the hotel policy, all the guests who are staying in a hotel are entitled to receive a copy of hotel newspapers every day in the morning. The bell boy who is working at night is accountable for distributing the newspapers to all occupied rooms.

The bell captain acquires the room verification report, it is a report which has detail information of all the rooms that are occupied by the guest. Then the bell boy marks the room numbers for each newspaper.

The bellboy in addition place the daily newsletters in each paper given by the guest relations office in the previous evening. Then the bell boy delivers the newspapers. The night shift bell boy maintains the proper record of numbers of newspapers that are received on regular basis.

Collection of Room Keys at departures

Furthermore, the very crucial function of the bell desk is collecting a key of a room from the guest who is checking out and needs to deposit those keys to the front desk.

It totally depends on the hotel which kind of keys they are using i.e. manual key or key cards so the bell desk staff have to keep an eye and need to remind the guest during check-out to deposit the room key.

Miscellaneous Jobs

Miscellaneous jobs such as courier collection, taking care of outgoing mail of the guest postage stamps handling, first aid box, carrying outside chore for the guest as well as for the hotel i.e. buying cinema tickets, moving of files and documents as well as going to banks, post office and FRRO police station for delivering a ‘C forms’.  Also booking a railways/bus reservation for the guest is performed by the bell desk.

The Bell boy has to perform the outside jobs only on the instructions of the bell captain. A trip slip has to be prepared. Also, need to make an entry in the logbook as well as in the control sheet and which is done in the observation of bell caption, this is done to control the movement of bellboys.

Once the bellboy return from outside same procedure needs to be carried out which is an entry in the logbook as well as control sheet and bell captain have to do signature in those sheets.

Generally, if there is a room discrepancy, the bell desk staff assists the duty manager in checking and sorting out the room status of the hotel.

PROCEDURES

Left Luggage procedure

There are several times when guests don’t want to carry their luggage to a place where they are going for a few days, so they keep their luggage with the hotel.

 In some scenarios, when the guest flight is in the evening and the hotel check-out time is by 12 noon, so at this moment they prefer to keep their luggage with the hotel because they find it too expensive to retain the room for an extra hour.

Most hotels provide the left luggage room facility free without any charges but there are some hotels that do charge.

The procedure for collecting luggage are as follow:

• Before taking any luggage from the guest bell boy have to make sure that the guest has settled his bill.
• Need to ensure that the guest luggage has been locked properly.
• Need to check the luggage if any damage than at that time only need to update the guest and make a record for the same should be made in the receipt.
• Have to paste the luggage stickers on all luggage pieces. A correct receipt has to be made, which should be signed by both guests as well as bell captain and then need to hand over to the guest.
• Need to enter proper guest details in the left luggage register with the expected date the luggage will be picked up by the guest.
• Place the luggage of the guest in the left luggage room below the lock and key.
• When the guest arrives at the hotel to collect his luggage pieces from the left luggage room at that time following procedure need to be done.
• Need to check the receipt of the guest and then give them their luggage from the left luggage room.
• Need request a guest to provide a receipt. In some instances, the guest might misplace or lost receipts than in such situation, take a signature of a guest in the left luggage register.
• Need to make a proper entry in the left luggage register by entering the exact date and time of luggage delivered.

Scanty Baggage Procedure

Scanty baggage is described as no luggage or lightweight baggage such as a briefcase or coat bag. Generally, the guest with scanty baggage is considered as skippers from the hotel. Skippers are those kinds of guests who leave the hotel without settling their bills. The scanty baggage guests are those who normally go out with their lightweight baggage and the hotel doesn’t know that if this guest is going out with an intention of not returning.

 To secure or not incur any loss to the hotel, have to collect the advance payment from the guest with scanty baggage. There is a lay-off procedure embrace by hotels to keep control of this type of guest with scanty baggage.         

• The duty manager and the reception staff are informed immediately when the guest with the scanty baggage arrives in the hotel.
• Arrival errand card has to be stamped on the scanty baggage.
• All the copies of guest registration cards have to stamp with the scanty baggage slip.
• The bell boy filled up in the scanty baggage register.
• The duty manager has to sign the guest registration cards and the scanty baggage slip.