Hotel Supervision Scheme for Future Technology

Abstract

Hotel industry is an important sector to highlight that appeal the tourist to increase the revenue from tourism industry in Bangladesh. But the whole supervision scheme of this industry is manual or mostly uses old-fashioned technology. To sustain in competitive market, The Hotel supervision schemes should be changed and coped with the future technology.

The intension of this research is to extending the hotel supervision scheme for future technology. I have chosen four future technologies to efficiently and effectively handle the workflow of a hotel supervision system. These technology includes-Smart Phone Application, Virtual Reality, Robotic Application, Enterprise Resource Planning. In Smart phone Application I uses Mobile/Tablet Pc based on OS application to handle the booking process. In Virtual Reality, I uses WoW (Windows On World) system for highlighting the facilities of the hotel in a realistic manner. In Robotic Application, I uses AI agent to physically provide the services to the customer.

If all of these proposed Application is applied in Hotel Supervision System, The tourism sector will change radically and contribute a great impact in our economical growth.

INTRODUCION

General Background

Hotel is commercial establishment that provides lodging, food, and other services to the public. The hotel business is an important industry in many countries, especially in those attracting a large tourist trade. Hotels can be classified according to location, facilities and services offered, and clientele served.

The tourism sector as a growing one in Bangladesh.

Tourism can go a long way to develop our country. The prospect of tourism in Bangladesh is very great and bright. Now a days tourism has become a industry all over the world. People want to break the monotony of their life. They want to be among novelties, pleasures and excitements. For this reason tourism has grown profitable. The people of the richer countries go from one country to another and enjoy the beauties, ancient relies and other wonders. We have many places archeological interest. So we can tourism a flourishing industry of our country. Hotel plays a important role of tourism.

Bangladeshi Companies compete with Multi national companies in our local market.

There are many multinational hotel in our country such as Sheraton, Westin, Radisson. All of them are five star hotel in Bangladesh. Their management system is automated.. The emergence of the hotel as a significant commercial institution, however, is a development of the past few centuries and may be traced by example in the U.S. The location of hotels has always been related to the transportation available. During colonial times hotels were usually situated in seaport towns, but by the end of the 18th century, when the stagecoach had increased travel within the U.S., many inns and taverns were constructed to offer lodgings along highway routes. After the construction of railroads in the 19th century, larger hotels were built near railroad stations to accommodate railway travelers. Standards of service and comfort rose appreciably and in the larger cities the types of lodging offered by certain hotels became luxurious. The old Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City and the BrownPalace in Denver, Colorado, were among the first such luxury hotels, but their rates were too high for the average traveler. Shortly before World War I large hotels offering many services at prices within the reach of middle-income groups were constructed. The first such institution was the Staler Hotel in Buffalo, New York, which opened in 1908. For years it served as a model for other large-city transient hotels.

The general prosperity following World War I made travel possible for more people, and the volume of hotel construction increased greatly. Because of the growing

Importance of business travel most new hotels were situated near central business areas. During this period the tourist court, the direct antecedent of the motel, was established; most offered only minimal accommodations and no luxuries.

In the 1920s, professional schools of hotel management were created to prepare

Americans for positions in the industry. Technical schools were also established to train

Skilled employees such as chefs. Today many colleges and universities offer a degree in hotel administration, and trade schools provide courses in both hotel and restaurant work. European-trained personnel also go to the U.S. to work in the hotel industry, where their skills are welcomed.

During World War II the hotel business flourished. No new hotels were built, but existing establishments were occupied nearly to capacity at all times. Because of the growing importance of automobile travel soon after World War II, almost all the new hotels built then were located near highways. By the late 1950s motels began to rival hotels by offering a broader range of services and facilities. Motels have increased greatly in number during the last 30 years, and the number of hotels has decreased somewhat. Today the motor hotel, offering the convenience of the motel and the service of the hotel, is becoming popular. More efficient transportation and the growing importance of air travel have reduced the need for accommodations along highways. Motor hotels are now being built within the boundaries of large cities and near airports. To deal with stiffer competition, a growing trend has been for hotels and motels to offer greater conveniences, such as faxing and photocopying for business travelers. Low hotel occupancy rates in the 1970s led to the development of budget motels, with cheaper lodging and fewer amenities. Country inns and bed-and-breakfasts have also grown in popularity since the 1970s; often located in rural areas, they offer a homey atmosphere and personal service.

Customer satisfaction is a very important issue for the reputation of any Hotel:

Customer satisfaction is very much essential issue for the fame of any hotel. So the quality of service provided to valued customer will be vivid and flawless. If hotel reputation is well the customer wants to go that hotel. Mainly hotel reputation depends on the customer security, service. Another most important point of hotel management system knows the customer perfectly.

The importance of computerized hotel supervision  system:

• Service Efficiency:

Computer based system provide an efficient service to the customer in a

short time. A customer need not to one desk to another to get his service.

• Right calculation of billing:

By converting manual system into computerized system the great achievement is the right calculation and billing. A customer can get a perfect bill from the hotel authority.

• Time saving:

A computer based system can save a lot of time because only a short duration computer can calculate billing, inserting, deleting, modifying easily.

• Helps to take quick decisions:

The computer based inventory management system provides various kinds of reports to the management. By using these reports, the management can take quick proactive decision about any problems or conditions.

• User friendly

Friendly interface means easily understandable and usable to the user or employee. This designed system is friendly interface because the users need not to give effort to use the system. They need not to know how the system works. They simply insert data and get appropriate result.

• Save paper work.

Manual system required huge amount of paper for accomplishing the management task. But the automated system reduces the paper work.

• Give facility of different type of inquiry:

The Computerized system gives the facilities of different types of inquiry.

Objectives of Extending Hotel Supervision Scheme

The main objectives to develop an Objectives of Extending Hotel Supervision Scheme at different management perspective are described in this Chapter.

Efficient Front desk Activity

Efficient Allocation and reallocation

When a customer comes then he goes to the information gathering centre to know about his booked room information. If the room is ok then customer confirms the room and the hotel authority allocate that room.

In some emergency situation customer booked rooms may be allotted by another. Then that time hotel authority can provide another room for guest, if the room is preferable by guest then he confirm the another room then hotel authority reallocated the another room.

Efficient check in/ checkout and Billing

When a manager allocate the room as the customer needs then check in process is ready to begin. When customer wants to leave the hotel then check out process efficiently. Manager calculates the total bill of the customer efficiently and then provides the bill to customer.

Efficient response to law enforcing agencies:

In my proposed hotel management system is to be prepared the efficient response to law enforcing agencies. In automated management system front desk officer collect the important information of customer. So if any moment law enforcing agencies want to know the information of specific person FDO can easily provide the information.

Efficient property management

Track and manage unutilized resources.

Efficient property management has provided a great impact of an automated hotel management system. Manager must be utilizing the resources by using business strategic. Sometimes seasonal effect is important. In off season manager must utilize the rooms and other resources efficiently.

Increase rate of utilization trough discount/offer:

In my proposed system manager increase the rate of utilization through discount or offer.

Discount may provide

                              1. Client Wise

                              2. Season wise

Client wise:  If the client is the type of corporate then he get 40% discount, if he is the CIP type then he can get 45% discount.

Season wise: There are two types of seasons one is off season and another is on season. In off seasons the discount rate is twenty percent and on seasons the discount rate is thirty percent.

Information Repository

DSS (Decision Support System)

The DSS uses strategic information from the information repository of the automated hotel management system which relates to long range planning policies that are of direct interest to upper management. Information such as- Employee Management, Expand or include the restaurant’s services, laundry services, Medical services. The information repository of the automated hospital management system acts as the data warehouse for setting up business strategies of the company. Many of the hotel business policies are applied by using the previous experience/data of the hotel, so the automated hospital management system warehousing the data that are used for setting up business strategies.

MIS (Management Information System)

Another level of information is the managerial information that are also acquired from the information repository of the Automated Hospital Management System. It is of direct use to middle management and department heads for implementation and control. This information assists to generate MIS report of the company that helps to make decision to emphasis the promotion of certain service to boost up its efficiency. Information such as-

• Monthly customer numbers.
• Monthly utilization ratio of different property.
• Ratio of confirmation and cancellation by customer.
• List of regular customer.
• Popular tour operators.
• Monthly better performing restaurant and coffee houses.

DPS (Data processing System)

The third information level is operational information, which is short-term, daily information used to operate the various department of hotel and enforce the day-to-day rules and regulations of the management. Day-to-day information such as:

• Number of borders per day.
• Daily number of occupied rooms.
• Bill of border asking for checking out.
• Search for any person in current/past borders on request from law enforcing agencies.

Recognition of need

Problem in the management of the hotel

Problem in Reservation of rooms

In manual system reservation of rooms bear a negative impact of hotel management system. Sometimes manager provide reservation service over phone. Then the system faces the following situation:

Not Synchronized:

In manual system is not synchronized. Sometimes customer becomes agitated as there is possibility for a single room booked by two customers at a same time.

Possibility of not getting the requested room due to lack of info.

In manual system in some situation customer can not get the requested room due to lack of information. It is difficult to gather all important by manual system.

Customer dissatisfaction

When single room booked by two customers at a same time then customer agitated their booking. It is a cause of customer dissatisfaction. If customer do not get the requested room due to lack of information or the quality of service is not satisfactory then that time customer do not feel comfort.

Poor management of property

Underutilization of Rooms:

In manual system manager sometimes failed to utilize other rooms such as ball rooms, conference rooms, meeting rooms efficiently due to the lack of proper information.

No business policy to boost up the utilization:

In existing system manager can not apply any business policy to improve the proper utilization of resources. Because no trend to figure out from manual system and the system can not generate any data for analysis.

Inefficient billing

In manual system inefficient billing is a very important issue for the reputation of any hotel. Billing problem are in below:

• Over billing

Over billing is the most dissatisfaction of customer. In manual system over billing may be happen. Billing paper would be clear and vivid to the customer.

• Under billing

Under billing of a customer is another problem for customer and management. It loss the reputation of hotel and customer think that the hotel management is not well and inefficient.

• Customer dissatisfaction:

When single room booked by two customers at a same time then customer agitated their booking. It is a cause of customer dissatisfaction. If customer do not get the requested room due to lack of information or the quality of service is not satisfactory then that time customer do not feel comfort. Over billing and under billing system bear a negative impact of hotel.

Few report leading to inefficient MIS

Manual hotel management scheme provides very few reports to the management that leading to inefficient MIS (Management Information System). For the lack of generating enough reports to management the hotel can not run well and the following problems are arises-

a.   Higher level management don’t get consolidated reports frequently:

In this case, for the few report generation problem of the manual hotel management scheme, the top level management can’t accommodate the DSS (Decision Support System) of the hotel for this reason; long term import decision can’t effectively take by the higher level management

b.   Lower level management don’t get detailed day-to-day information for quick decisions making:

The manual hotel management scheme  can’t provide efficient report to the lower level management of the hotel. For this reason the lower level management suffers to control DPS (Data Processing System) of the hotel. To overcome the problem of generating very few reports that leading to inefficient MIS of the manual hotel management system.

From the above discussion, we have decided that, without Computerized hotel Management scheme  and using upgrade Technology , we can’t remedy the above problem.

System Analysis

Statement of constraints

In manual hotel management scheme , there are many constraints that reduce the desired performance of the system. These constraints are in below:-

• Customer need authentic for reservation.

It is a important issue that customer need authentic their reservation. If manager is failed to authentic the customer then customer agitated for their reservation.

• Mid level management need to discover the trends in the business for decision making.
• Front desk officer need easy check in check out process and fast bill calculation.

Front desk officer need to easy to cheek in check out the customer and fast bill calculation efficiently. But manual system it’s not fully possible to provide the customer.

• Law enforcing agencies need right and authentic information when required.

In manual hotel management scheme  is not to be prepared the efficient response to law enforcing agencies. In manual system front desk officer do not collect the important information of customer. So if any moment law enforcing agencies want to know the information of specific person FDO can not easily provide the information.

• Customer and hotel management both desires for flawless calculation of bills.
• Time efficiency.

A manual system can not save a lot of time because only a short duration FDO can not calculate billing, inserting, deleting, modifying easily.

• Data security and reliability.
• We need to solve these issues

Identification of specific system objective

To improve the performance of the existing manual hotel management scheme , we have to identify the specific system objective of company. By achieving these objectives the company will performs well in the marketplace. The following are the major identification to improve the performance of the company:-

1)    Improved property management

To improve the performance of hotel the management will be aware to the quality of service provided to the valued customer. They must be set business policies in different situation.

2)    Cost reduction

The money and time is the main constraint of any system. In many ways – by improving Statement of constraints the management will be able to reduce the cost of the hotel management scheme .

3)    Improved customer service

The customer is the existence of any business organization. So, every business organization should provide the best services to catch their customer. By improving the customer services, the Customers will get better service and they will not be harassed due to misconduct.

4)    Source of authentic information.

It is very important for hotel management scheme  that management should need to authentic information to the government. It is a good impact of hotel.

To look into the existing system I did the following –

Information gathering about the existing manual system.

To understand about the details operation of the existing hotel management system and his technology, I did the following.

a.     Review of written documents

When available, all documentation on data carriers (Customer bill, Room log, Restaurant bills etc) is organized and evaluated. Included in procedures manuals are the requirements of the system, which helps in determining to extent they met by the present system. By studying the written documents of Sundarban hotel such as financial reports, System documents and manuals, Reports and their transaction documents, billing system report, I have tried to collected many different kinds of information of their business. Unfortunately, most manuals are not up to date or may not be readable.

b.    On site observation

Another fact-finding method used by the systems analyst is on-site or direct observation. The analyst’s role is that of an information seeker. One purpose of on-site observation is to get as close as possible to the “real” system being studied. In this project, it is advisable to obtain additional information about the existing system by observing the daily activities performed in the actual work place. This is called the on-site observation method. It is the process of recognizing and noting people, objects, and occurrences to obtain information. As an information seeker the analyst expected to be detached from the system being observed. This role permits participation with the user staff openly and freely. As an observer the analyst follows a set of rules. While making observations, analyst is more likely to listen than talk and to listen with a sympathetic and genuine interest when information is conveyed.

In this phase, I observed their activities to understand the practical sequence of tasks adopted by the management. At first, I have carried out a through surveillance of existing Hotel Management System to obtain various details of hotel like customer entrance system, employee’s salary system, billing system information etc.

  i.  Interviews

Interview is the way to understand people. It is a formal and informal conversation or discussion to be occurred. The aim and purpose of interviewing is to get information that can be used to develop a system. The investigation and to find out the solution of the problems faced by the partially cited people by inquiring and taking their views about how we could upgrade the development of the software so that it will help them for a clear vision of the system and also how it will benefit them. This procedure has been summarized by a series of questionnaires method to different partially sighted people. It is a structured question and answer session between two persons, the interviewer and the interviewee. Interviewing is an important skill for the systems analyst because this is the most common way in which to obtain information from the users. Other methods may be used once and twice during the life cycle. Interviews will take place many times during the various phases of the systems development process.

A hotel has a lot of business part in each department. All hotel in our country moves on by their customer. I went to the Sundarban hotel to collect information for my thesis. At first I met with managing director of the Sundarban hotel who told me about the process of their hotel. Then I visited the Sundarban hotel and collect a lot of information which is too important for my thesis

Information about the hotel and management

Sundarban hotel is a profitable organization, so its department and its maintenance depend on own budget.

This hotel is a six-storied building with a total working area of more than 30,000 sq. meters and 120 rooms. There are two restaurant are in this hotel. There are two ball rooms; two meeting rooms and one conference room are in this hotel. The restaurant JARNA is in the third floor and coffee house and another restaurant MIDNIGHT are in the fifth floor.

In a hotel management system, there are various types of employees such as Manager, Front desk officer, guard, cleaner, chef etc.

1. Information about the rooms and other properties.
2. Rent.

Many types of rooms are exists are in Sundarban hotel. All of this rent rate are not same. There are sever types room such as Meeting rooms, Ball rooms, Conference rooms, Single room, Double room etc. The rent rate cost per day are in below:

 2.     Business policies:

Business policies are the information about the business offers include discount and other offers that are provided by the management.

 3.     About customer with.

• Customer type: The information about the type of customer such as- regular, new, corporate etc.

4.     About Employee with.

• Employee respective post:

Employee respective information is important they would be manager, font desk officer, room attend, guard, chef etc.

• Status: The information about the appointment status need to be known from the manager.

Evaluate the manual process

As we know the manual processing is quite tedious, time consuming, less accurate in comparison to computerized processing. Obviously the present system is not is exception consultant encountering all the above problems. After the initial investigation of the existing manual system, I have found the following troublesome position of the current system:

1. Time consuming.

2. It is very tedious.

3. All information is not placed separately.

4. Lot of paper work.

5. Slow data processing.

6. Not user-friendly environment.

7. It is difficult to found records due file management system.

General description of the system

Description of Context level DFD:

• Customer wants to seek service from front desk officer.
• Front desk officer provides service to customer.
• Front desk officer provides a bill to customer.
• Customer paid the bill.

The overall research of future technology in Hotel Supervision Scheme.

Technology is rapidly evolving, and for many establishments, the future will be a faceless front desk. Automatic check-in technology is already being implemented in several hotel chains. Features like smart phone room entry can eliminate the formality of arriving at the front desk. Guests that use this technology reserve their room online. On the day of check-in, they receive a text message with their room number linked to the guest’s preferred member card. They may go straight to their hotel room and enter their room by placing their smart phone near the door lock or by punching in a code. Some hotels will implement facial recognition technology: the guest checks in at the front desk, guest image is captured, then assigned to a room number. The guest needs no key to enter his room.

This process is done right on your phone. You are sent a text message with a special web address that allows you to check into your room wherever you are at. Instantly you are checked in and the room key is sent to your phone. When arriving at the hotel you can pass by the front desk and head straight to your room. The door is opened by the key that was sent to you upon checking in. Just place your phone in front of the door and it will unlock. Upon leaving the hotel you can stop by a checkout point and place your phone in front of the indicated area. Confirm you are checking out with a touch of a button and you are done. With this easy mobile technology you are no longer required to stand in line for the checking in or out process saving much needed time.

1. The iPad Revolution:

This device in my opinion is going rapidly and  guests are going to use technology in hotels in the future particularly in the guestroom. Consider these points.

a). It is the fastest selling consumer electronic device

b). iPad is the first video centric guest internet device

c). It has a very simple GUI ( Guest User Interface ) and new users both young and old are able to use it almost immediately with little or no training so they may easily use this technology easily.
d). IPad is  placing huge demands on Hotel Wi-Fi systems consuming much more bandwidth and data than in the past with people doing emails etc…

While we have focused on the iPad we cannot forget other tablet devices that are also gaining market share namely the Samsung Galaxy, plus the new Kindle Fire and of course other smart phones that use the Android operating system.

Robotic Application in Hotel supervision scheme:

While food and beverage applications represent a small fraction of industrial robotics installation, it is widely recognize as one of the fastest growing segments. The vast majority of robots in the Food & Beverage industry are found in the packaging area, with secondary functions such as case packing and palletizing dominating. High-speed Material Handling robotic arms and vision-guided systems are beginning to work alongside and-in many cases-instead of humans in food factories. In hotel management system robotic system provide a vital role which is helpful and to provide a better service to the customer.

Virtual Reality in  Hotel:

Today, customers prefer to use the internet to search and book their hotels online as it allows them to compare hotel and price and shortens the look to book process. So, having an online presence is a necessity. However, there are thousands of websites online and to stand out from the crowd you need to market your hotel in the most appealing fashion.
One of the best ways to convert visitors into customers is by providing them a true-to-life presentation, which will give them a clear view of your hotel premises even before they make a booking. Latest research shows that Virtual Reality promises 46% more sales to hotels compared to other media.

A hotel ERP is an important tool for the hospitality industry as it helps utilize the benefits of technology and makes hotel operations easy and efficient. However, most managers are often confused by issues like how does one choose a good hotel management software and what are the qualities they should to look for before choosing an ERP application.

To begin with, a hospitality or hotel ERP is a rather new concept. Even now most hotels use a property management system or PMS which basically consists of front office, accounts receivables, telephone management and point of sale. A Hotel ERP on the other hand is a far more comprehensive application like material management, inventory, finance, banquets and more.

Identifying ones requirements:

The biggest challenge for any hotel manager before for choosing a hotel ERP is to determine his requirements and weight it against costs. These are long term investments that need to be made with though as the solution will be used by the hotel for as much as 10 – 12 years or more. In contrast, the wrong choice of software can force you to replace it in matter of year or less. To avoid such a situation managers need to clearly understand their operational needs before even investing in an ERP.

Here is where a good hotel ERP can help a hotel property

• Managing Guest History

Imagine a day were your Front office manager gets an extra 4 hours for your Guest? Imagine if your guest leaves your hotel with a smile and a wish and a will to visit your hotel again? Keeping a track of guests can be a tedious job but a hospitality ERP with a Guest Management Tool can helps you keep track of historical data of your guest. It also helps a hotel capture individual guest preferences which increasing guest satisfaction. The inbuilt guest history feature in a hotel ERP ensures complete insight in to your guest’s needs, enabling you to proactively offer the services requested – a sure way to create satisfied guests. And we all know that happy guests are the ones who come back!

• Increased Staff Productivity

A good hospitality software hastens the reservation process, like enabling it on a single screen, enabling the user to check hotel position and room availability at a glance.

A good software also aids at the front office as it enables faster check-in and check-out and halves the check-in time by 50%. With just a few clicks of a button the front desk can quickly access info on the guest’s room rate, special offers availed, whether the bill has to be given to the guest or forwarded to a company and so on.

• Night Audit The most robust hotel audit mechanism including a night audit feature that requires no shutdown. No guest will have to wait till your system restarts if you have a check-in or check-out at the time of night audit. Happier guests – guaranteed!

• Menu engineering

A good ERP offers Food & Beverage costing which allows a hotel to maintain issue based and recipe based costing which increases control on production areas. Should you have the opportunity to review this module in an ERP ensure that it has user friendly interfaces, while ensuring easy maintenance, faster updates and greater security

Benefits of an ERP :

• Information consistency and accuracy across hotel departments
• Simplified cross-departmental coordination and workflow execution
• Streamlined tasks, which frees hotel staff to focus on activities that require personalized attention
• Easier goal setting and monitoring of goal achievement
• Agile infrastructure that identifies and fixes problems rapidly

ERP in different section of the Hotel.:

Enterprise Resource Planning can help us to provide services in different section of the hotel as for.

• Finance Resource Management
• Manufacturing Resource Management
• Supply Chain Management
• Customer Resource Management
• Human Resource Management

CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK.

In this thesis I  have reviewed  the current state of Hotel Supervision Scheme in developing countries especially in Bangladesh. The success of technology and its available use in every spare of life the hotel supervision scheme is rising dramatically

In this thesis work my aim to put some proposal about Hotel supervision Scheme and its extend use by using future technology  .  All of the process based on a standard process . Here we have the method how it operated and the future  technology which are providing a great impact for extending Hotel Supervision scheme .

In my design I have assumed that traditional scheme that is not cost effective and user friendly. Now using technology such as Smartphone , I-Pad  which pays a vital role for reservation or booking a room in hotel. Robotic application in food and beverage section is an another important of Artificial intelligent which also serve the guest accurately in a hotel. ERP(Enterprise Resource Planning) system is also an important planning system for extending the Hotel Supervision Scheme.

In this thesis work I did not complete my proposed technology through implementation due to time constraints . But in future I can do this and I may use Virtual Reality BPR technology massively in Hotel  Supervision Scheme.