NN AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE REAL SITUATION AND SOLUTIONS TO IMPROVING FRONT OFFICE DEPARTMENT AT SEA CORNER BOUTIQUE HOTEL

DUY TAN UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF ENGLISH GRADUATION PAPER AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE REAL SITUATION AND SOLUTIONS TO IMPROVING FRONT OFFICE DEPARTMENT AT SEA CORNER BOUTIQUE HOTEL Major : English for Tourism SUPERVISOR : VO THI THANH TAM, M.A STUDENT : LE QUANG HUY CLASS : K23 NAD6 STUDENT CODE : 2321320711 DA NANG, 2021 Graduation Paper Supervisor: Vo Thi Thanh Tam ACKNOWLEDGMENT February 24th, 2021 To Teachers in Duy Tan university To Manager and all of Staff in Sea Corner Boutique Hotel Da Nang First, I would like to express the sincere gratitude to the teachers for your guidance in the past months I appreciate your assistance and valuable experience, which had led me to better preparation in my career path Besides, I am thankful Ms Vo Thi Thanh Tam, my tutor in this research and thesis writing process; and Ms Pham Thi Thuy, my supervisor who offered me a valuable internship opportunity in her hotel Finally, I would like to thank the help from friends and other teachers who have helped intellectually with this thesis Student :Le Quang Huy Class: K23ND6 code : 2321320711 Graduation Paper Supervisor: Vo Thi Thanh Tam STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I declare that except where reference is made in the text of the thesis, this thesis contains no material published elsewhere or extracted in the whole or in part from a thesis by which have qualified for or been awarded another degree or diploma in my university and that to the best my knowlede No other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the graduation paper This graduation paper has not been submitted for award of any degree or diploma in any other tertiary institution Danang, May 2021 Le Quang Huy Student :Le Quang Huy Class: K23ND6 code : 2321320711 Graduation Paper Supervisor: Vo Thi Thanh Tam LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1: Facilities of Room Table 2.2: Facilities of Restaurant Table 3.1: Revenue profile of Sea Corner Boutique Hotel between 2019 and 2020 Table 3.2: Number of guests at Sea Corner Boutique Hotel between 2019 and 2020 Table 3.3: Customer’s evaluation about Reception Department facilities Table 3.4: Result of customers’ evaluation about the Front Office Department staff’s attitude Table 3.5: Guests evaluating of facilities of the Sea Corner Boutique Hotel Table 3.6: Guests’evaluation of the Receptionist of Sea Corner Boutique Hotel Table 3.7: Guest’s evaluation of the serving process of Sea Corner Boutique Hotel Diagram 1: Sea Corner Boutique Hotel’s Organizational structure Diagram 2: Organizational structure of Front Office Department in Sea Corner Boutique Hotel Student :Le Quang Huy Class: K23ND6 code : 2321320711 Graduation Paper Supervisor: Vo Thi Thanh Tam LIST OF FIGURES Chart 3.1: Revenue profile of Sea Corner Boutique Hotel between 2019 and 2020 Chart 3.2: Number of guests at Sea Corner Boutique Hotel between 2019 and 2020 Chart 3.3: Guest’s review about Reception Section facilities Chart 3.4: Resulf of customers’s about the Front Office Department staff’s attitude Student :Le Quang Huy Class: K23ND6 code : 2321320711 Graduation Paper Supervisor: Vo Thi Thanh Tam LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS F&B : Food and Beverage FO : Front Office Student :Le Quang Huy Class: K23ND6 code : 2321320711 Graduation Paper Supervisor: Vo Thi Thanh Tam TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP .ii LIST OF TABLES .iii LIST OF FIGURES .iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS .v TABLE OF CONTENTS .vi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .1 1.1 RATIONALE .1 1.2 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES 1.3 SCOPE OF THE STUDY 1.4 METHOD OF THE STUDY .2 1.5 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY CHAPTER : THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 2.1 Tourism 2.1.1 Definition of tourism 2.1.2 Classification of tourism .4 2.2 Hotel .5 2.2.1 Definitions of hotel 2.2.2 Classification of hotel 2.3 Hotel Business .7 2.3.1 Definition of Hotel Business 2.3.2 Feature of Hotel Business .7 2.4 Hotel Product 2.4.1 Definition of Hotel Product 2.4.2 Hotel products classify CHAPTER 3: CASE DESCRIPTION 11 Student :Le Quang Huy Class: K23ND6 code : 2321320711 Graduation Paper Supervisor: Vo Thi Thanh Tam 3.1 Introduction to the Front Office Department of Sea Corner Boutique Hotel Da Nang 11 3.1.1 Definition of the Front Office Department of Sea Corner Boutique Hotel Da Nang .11 3.1.2 The role and the mission of the Reception Department of Sea Corner Boutique Hotel Da Nang .11 3.1.3 The organizational structure of the Reception Department of Sea Corner Boutique Hotel Da Nang 12 3.1.4 Serving process of the Front Office Department of Sea Corner Boutique Hotel Da Nang 14 3.1.5 Requirements for the Front Office staff of Sea Corner Boutique Hotel Da Nang 15 3.2.1 Introduction and foundation .17 3.2.2 Sea Corner Boutique Hotel’s operation system .18 3.3 Sea Corner Boutique Hotel’s facilities 19 3.3.1 Hotel room 20 3.3.2 The restaurant .24 3.3.3 Additional services 26 3.4 Real status and the performance of the Front Office Department at Sea Corner Boutique Hotel 27 3.4.1 Introduction to the Front Office Department 27 3.4.2 Reception Department’s staff 27 3.4.3 Working hours 28 3.4.4 Working style 28 3.4.5 Serving process of the Receptionist at Sea Corner Boutique Hotel 28 CHAPTER 4: ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION .30 Student :Le Quang Huy Class: K23ND6 code : 2321320711 Graduation Paper Supervisor: Vo Thi Thanh Tam 4.1 Hotel’s bussiness in recent years .30 4.1.1 Revenue profile of Sea Corner Boutique Hotel in recent years 30 4.1.2 Number of guests at Sea Corner Boutique Hotel 31 4.2 Reception Department facilities 32 4.3 Reception Department staff’s attitudes 33 CHAPTER 5: DIFFICULTIES AND SOLUTIONS 38 5.1 General evaluation to the strengths and weaknesses of the Services quality of Front Office Department at Sea Corner Boutique Hotel 38 5.1.1 Strong points .38 5.1.2 Weak points 38 5.2 Suggestions 38 5.2.1 For Front Office Department’s facilities 39 5.2.2 For Front Office Department’s staffs 39 5.2.3 Other solutions .39 CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS 41 6.1 Conclusion 41 6.2 Suggestions .41 6.2.1 Suggestions for the overall issues 41 6.2.2 Suggestions for the teaching and studying of English for Tourism at English Department, DTU 42 REFERENCES 43 SUPERVISOR’S COMMENTS 44 APPENDIX 44 Student :Le Quang Huy Class: K23ND6 code : 2321320711 Graduation Paper Supervisor: Vo Thi Thanh Tam CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 RATIONALE Tourism is recently known as having a slowdown due to the Covid 19 pandemic, although this was one of the prosperous industries and greatly contributes to the income of the country By that fact, the tourism industry in general, and the hotel industry in particular, are required to change to adapt Indeed, the current number of hotels is increasing, which clearly means hotels need to build and improve their strong selling point to passengers and assert their competitive position in the market Customers are demanding higher and higher quality of service, however, depends on their subjective perception Thus, satisfying all the demand is such a difficult issue for the business High-quality "products" building by minimizing errors in the service process from the time of arrival until the time of leaving the hotel is greatly affected by communication activities in the hotel, which is mainly decided by the receptionist's department Through this department, a hotel can inform, guide, explain customer complaints or inquiries These activities make it possible to find the insight of passengers In addition, the reception department is known as the face of a hotel representing from the first and the last interaction with customers, which determines the customer's impression of the quality of the hotel Contemporary, the hotel receptionist is the bridge to deploy the hotel's business strategy however still satisfies the customers Sea Corner Boutique Hotel is a 3-star hotel, located in a great view to My Khe beach, Da Nang In the past few years, service quality reviews are quite high, especially in the FO section However, with the request to increase the competition of Sea Corner Boutique hotel in order to survive the Student: Le Quang Huy Class: K23NAD6 code : 232132071 Graduation Paper 36 Supervisor: Vo Thi Thanh Tam 12.90% 0.81% Satisfied Normal Dissatisfied 86.29% Chart 3.4: Result of customers’ evaluation about the Front Office Department staff’s attitude 4.4 Overall Evaluation of The Reception Department of Sea Corner Boutique Hotel In order to have a thorough view on the matter, the author carried out a survey on 300 hotel visitors, about three issues, namely hotel’s facilities, receptionist, and process of serving at Sea Corner Boutique Hotel The General Assessing of Facilities of The Reception Department The first issue is about the facilities of the Reception Department at Memority Hotel&Villas, and the results are as follows: Level Very Pleased Pleased Displeased (%) (%) (%) Criteria Convenience 61 37 Cleanliness 93 Safety 87 13 Synchronous 34 20 46 Table 3.5: Guests evaluating of facilities of the Sea Corner Boutique Hotel There are four basic requirements for assessing the quality of the Reception Department facilities at Sea Corner Boutique Hotel Student: Le Quang Huy Class: K23NAD6 code : 232132071 Graduation Paper 37 Supervisor: Vo Thi Thanh Tam According to Table 3.5, Factors such as convenience, safety, and cleanliness are very satisfied by the customer In which 93% of guests feel the Reception Department is very clean and tidy This proves that the hotel has completed compliance with hygiene regulations by cleaning floors, tables, armchairs, etc Besides, every staff maintains the habit of cleaning equipment in the Reception Department Obsolete and outdated are inevitable This is why 46% of customers surveyed are dissatisfied with the synchronous of equipment in here Most computers and phones are outdated, shelves are rusted Also, the clock is quite small hard to observe, and all the decorative objects such as paintings, pictures, statues are faded Finally, the survey results on the facilities' quality are relatively good However, Managements need to have policies to improve to meet the needs of guests It is necessary to enhance the modern equipment for the working process to make the hotel business more efficient 4.5 Evaluating about The Receptionist Then comes the second issue about Receptionists Sea Corner Boutique Hotel and the results are as follows: Level Extremely Quite Somewhat Criteria (%) (%) (%) Equip with basic knowledge and etiquettes 52 44 77 23 89 10 Possess pleasant, polite, and cordial personality Wear clean and neat uniform Student: Le Quang Huy Class: K23NAD6 code : 232132071 Graduation Paper Conduct with 38 professionalism, Supervisor: Vo Thi Thanh Tam positive 91 Possess communication skills 88 12 Possess the ability to tackle tricky situations 50 48 attitude, and cooperative Table 3.6: Guests’evaluation of the Receptionist of Sea Corner Boutique Hotel Being a part of the service industry, the front office staff needs to have the following qualities and competencies is mentioned in Table Based on guests’ evaluation of the Receptionist at Sea Corner Boutique Hotel, it is shown that customers appreciate the criteria of a receptionist as attitude (91%), communication (88%), uniforms (89%), and personalities (77%) The staff has some aspects that customers consider to achieve satisfaction When the proportion of staff with university degrees is low This reflected that the skills of the employees have not been highly appreciated by customers Besides, employees are assessed by customers that the ability to handle unexpected situations at a good level is quite low, accounting for only 50% The receptionist is not flexible and agile when dealing with difficult issues during working time So, customers gave very low ratings to the receptionist guards in this regard This leads to any inconvenience that may have been caused during the guest's stay with the hotel Therefore, the receptionist always strives to full fill the guest's needs and wants 4.7 Evaluating The Process of Serving Student: Le Quang Huy Class: K23NAD6 code : 232132071 Graduation Paper 39 Supervisor: Vo Thi Thanh Tam Finally, guests are asked to evaluate the serving process of Sea Corner Boutique Hotel and the results are as follows: Level Question How was the reservation process? How was the check-in process? How was serving guests during their stay? How was the check-out process? Extremely Quite Somewhat (%) (%) (%) 87 12 88 11 41 57 80 17 Table 3.7: Guest’s evaluation of the serving process of Sea Corner Boutique Hotel The results in Table 3.7 indicate that the ratings of the check-in and check-out process were agreed at the extremely Including 88 % of the checkin process and the check-out process accounted for 80% The results, therefore, indicated that the receptionists were very good at performing the handling of the checking-in and checking-out process of guests Regular updates customer information helps this process on happening quickly, bringing high customer satisfaction Also, the reservation process was appreciated with 87% of guests fell extremely satisfied The level of satisfaction with serving guests during their stay is only quite, it accounted for 57% The figures also reveal that guests felt that the receptionist did not provide the clients with adequate information about additional services of hotel such as wake up call, bike rental, laundry service, tour guide, massage service, etc Student: Le Quang Huy Class: K23NAD6 code : 232132071 Graduation Paper 40 Supervisor: Vo Thi Thanh Tam CHAPTER 5: DIFFICULTIES AND SOLUTIONS 5.1 General evaluation to the strengths and weaknesses of the Services quality of Front Office Department at Sea Corner Boutique Hotel 5.1.1 Strong points - All staff in this department are university level and fluently communicate by at least two foreign languages - They always work with the honest and serious - People work and scale, avoid mistakes and fulfill the requirements set by the leader - Staff attitude is enthusiastic and welcoming to customers Willing to help when required 5.1.2 Weak points There are some weaknesses which employee should fix out: - Some employees work too slow, cannot satisfy customers' demand - Staff should be trained more about foreign language - The staff is not really cooperated - The attitude of some employees is not really good 5.2 Suggestions Perform tests, evaluate service quality at the front desk to know the quality of service at the front desk, to take measures to improve service quality and attract customers to the hotel, as well as training the quality of staff to keep up with the general trend of the service industry Therefore, I offer the following measures to solve the outstanding problems at the reception as well as the hotel: Student: Le Quang Huy Class: K23NAD6 code : 232132071 Graduation Paper 41 Supervisor: Vo Thi Thanh Tam 5.2.1 For Front Office Department’s facilities Overall, it is necessary to ensure the periodic maintenance, replacement or repair of rooms and equipment that have been degraded, damaged, not guaranteed in service quality, so the hotel needs: - Degraded equipment’s at front office should be repaired or replace in order to improve service quality - Upgrade main computer, exactly computer ram, main board: Those computers ran slowly and sometime caused lag problem - Hotels should replace key card name tag because it was getting too old and really hard to realize 5.2.2 For Front Office Department’s staffs Sea Corner Boutique hotel has a relatively large number of customers on weekends, and especially on holidays However, due to the current epidemic situation, the front desk will usually take on the tasks of both cashier and sales So sometimes there will be some problems arising during the shift Therefore, comprehensive and organized employee training should be carried out on a regular basis The recruitment also needs to be very careful, carefully selecting people with experience and qualifications, with good personal qualities, no communication problems, fluent at least foreign languages to ensure the job is smoother 5.2.3 Other solutions For Sea Corner Boutique Hotel Hotels should have promotions to attract tourists in the off-peak season It is necessary to maintain a certain amount of guests to ensure the operation of the hotel In the peak season, it is necessary to focus on serving customers Student: Le Quang Huy Class: K23NAD6 code : 232132071 Graduation Paper 42 Supervisor: Vo Thi Thanh Tam in order to bring the best experience to customers, and at the same time leave a good impression for the hotel to have guests in the long road Moreover, in order to attract more customers, the hotel needs to maintain attracting guests through OTA channels such as "Booking.com", "Agoda.com", "Mytour.com" in order to maintain the customer base Another way is to maintain promotion and sale of rooms through social networks Introducing hotels through social networks is a very good way in the era of very popular social networks today In the end, hotels need to concentrate on training and always create work motivation to encourage employees For Receptionist Department In hotel business, Reception is an extremely important factor in creating the image of a hotel The first impression of that hotel is good or not, tourists will immediately look at the front desk staff Therefore, welcoming guests is a process that needs to be trained in a way to bring the best quality This is also what Sea Corner Hotel needs to seriously First, the leadership needs to strengthen the operational organization and manage employees methodically Define goals, finalize them, then disseminate them to employees and ask them to perform in a standard way This standard will belong to the demands of the customer and in accordance with the criteria of the hotel Moreover, training and professional training, constantly improving the qualifications of employees Employees must always listen to customers, answer their questions The attitude should always be cheerful and happy Finally, always keep the area clean at all times Customers will be assured of the quality of that hotel when they see a shiny lobby like new Student: Le Quang Huy Class: K23NAD6 code : 232132071 Graduation Paper 43 Supervisor: Vo Thi Thanh Tam CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS 6.1 Conclusion In the current trend of society, people increasingly need to travel Although we are in a pandemic period, there is no effective vaccine to prevent covid-19, but the whole population is still united to take measures to prevent away pandemic In general, all hotels and Sea Corner in particular still try to convert services with the best quality, even though we are in the period of lack of human resources to maintain the hotel's operation Overall, the hotel's Front Office department is still doing very well During my internship at the hotel, I learned a lot of experience, better understood the importance of the Front Office Department at the hotel, and learned how to handle problems arising in shift and also learned professional style when working in a hotel These experiences are very valuable, and it will help me in the future, after I graduated Once again, I would like to thank the entire management, my fellow staffs at Sea Corner Hotel, who have been very enthusiastic in helping me over the past months Hopefully in the future, I will have the opportunity to continue working with everyone 6.2 Suggestions 6.2.1 Suggestions for the overall issues Sea Corner Boutique has an advantage over competitors in the industry Some outstanding such as the position of hotel are very special close to My Khe Beach attracted many domestic and foreign tourists Guests can witness local food, visit the Linh Ung pagoda and on the way to Hoi An Ancient Towm It is convenient for using necessary services, enjoying specialties food, and participate directly in local cultural activities Student: Le Quang Huy Class: K23NAD6 code : 232132071 Graduation Paper 44 Supervisor: Vo Thi Thanh Tam Maintain a steady flow of hotel guests over the year Hotel continues to promote its strengths Not only that, but hotel must also enhance development more such as renovate facilities, become better the improvement of the staff, gradually improve the quality of existing services at hotel 6.2.2 Suggestions for the teaching and studying of English for Tourism at English Department, DTU In a new market economy of Vietnam with the increasing number of foreign tourists, the ability to communicate in English has become a key to a better job So the English language major of DTU plays an important role In fact, in the position of being a student of the foreign language department at DTU, I would like to present some objective ideas of myself Hopefully, these ideas will contribute a small part to help my department improve and attract more and more students in the following years English Department should organize a course on hotel and hotel business Because most of the objects of the student graduation paper are hotels It is believed the course provides students with the skills and knowledge in tourism and hotel management Specifically, the course provides materials on topics such as communication in English as a hotel manager, tour operator, or a tour guide English Department needs to supply for students about documents such as newspapers, commentaries on the familiar topic, including major themes: tourism and hotel It is very useful for the student's research and analysis Student: Le Quang Huy Class: K23NAD6 code : 232132071 Graduation Paper 45 Supervisor: Vo Thi Thanh Tam REFERENCES Vietnamese Books: [1] Dr Nguyen Van Manh, Dr Hoang T Lan Huong (2013) Giao trinh Quan Tri Kinh Doanh Khach San NXB ĐH Kinh te Quoc dan English Books: [2]Antonio Alvarez-Ferrer, Fernando Campa-Planas, Juan Pablo GonzalesBustos (2018) Identification of the key factors for success in the hotel sector Universitat Rovira i Virgili (Spain) [3] Macintosh and Goeldner (1986) Tourism: Principles, Practices and Philosophie Hoboken, NJ, USA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc Websites: [4] https://pecidasase.blogspot.com/2011/05/definition-of-tourism-byexpert.html [5] The National Assembly of the SOCIALIST REPUBLIC of VIETNAM (2017) Vietnam Law Libarary Retrieved from The tourism laws 2017: https://thuvienphapluat.vn/van-ban/Van-hoa-Xa-hoi/Luat-du-lich-2017322936.aspx Student: Le Quang Huy Class: K23NAD6 code : 232132071 Graduation Paper 46 Supervisor: Vo Thi Thanh Tam APPENDIX Survey of customer satisfaction with Sea Corner Boutique Hotel Reception Department Student: Le Quang Huy Class: K23NAD6 code : 232132071 Graduation Paper Student: Le Quang Huy 47 Supervisor: Vo Thi Thanh Tam Class: K23NAD6 code : 232132071 Graduation Paper Student: Le Quang Huy 48 Supervisor: Vo Thi Thanh Tam Class: K23NAD6 code : 232132071 Graduation Paper Student: Le Quang Huy 49 Supervisor: Vo Thi Thanh Tam Class: K23NAD6 code : 232132071 Graduation Paper 50 Supervisor: Vo Thi Thanh Tam SUPERVISOR’S COMMENTS Student: Le Quang Huy Class: K23NAD6 code : 232132071 ... Thanh Tam pandemic, I would like to raise the topic: "An Investigation into the Real Situation and Solutions to Improving Front Office Department at Sea Corner Boutique Hotel" , at the aim to. .. Thanh Tam 3.4 Real status and the performance of the Front Office Department at Sea Corner Boutique Hotel 3.4.1 Introduction to the Front Office Department The Face of a hotel is Front Office Department. .. Front Office Department at Sea Corner Boutique Hotel Chapter 5: The difficulties and some solutions to solve outstanding issues and improve the Services of Front Office Department at Sea Corner Boutique