Overbooking implies that the hotel management accepts more reservations than its usual capacity after forecasting for stay over, no-show, and walk-in guests at the hotel. As a front desk manager, Amir was responsible for the overbooking at Calgary. The probable reasons for overbooking are:
- Confirmed reservations and no-show cases can be a possible reason for overbooking. For instance, if a guest has a confirmed reservation until a stipulated time of the day, then the hotel is under obligation to hold the reservation until that time. However, once the time is over, the hotel is not under any obligation to hold reservations. As different travellers have different no-show rates, therefore it is important to minimize the no-show rates according to them. Thus, one reason could be miscalculation of the no-show case.
- Predicting a higher number of checkouts on a future date may lead to overbooking. Stayovers could e a possible reason for the present overbooking situation. With the beginning of the Calgary festival, guests may have decided to stay longer and beyond the time for which they had made reservations.
- Lower forecast of future walk-ins may cause overbooking. The number of walk-in guests may have increased due to the festival. The festival at Calgary attracts many tourists and Amir may have not accounted for the festival while doing booking for the hotel. The festival was a likely reason to increase the number of walk-in guests. Thus, increase in walk-ins could be a probable reason for overbooking.
- Another reason might be holding less room for a group room bloc than that was actually required. This may lead to an overbooking situation.
Overbooking is an important tool to reduce revenue loss due to no-shows or cancelations. However, a quality must be maintained to ensure that there is always room to accommodate a certain percentage of overbooking. The quality checks that Amir must go through once he is in office are to check for the date of reservations. Then account for the confirmed bookings.
Further, the bookings, which were made provisionally need to be followed up with and their status, need to be checked. Then check those bookings, for which the guests have already paid. The number of days for which the booking has been done. Then check for the bookings of guests whoa re to arrive today. Then check the dates of the current dates and dates of their expected departure.
Further Amir would check for the status of the guest and the reason for his arrival at Calgary. The other checks would be if the reservation done was for a single person or a larger group. If the reservation was a corporate reservation and of other members of the company staying with the hotel currently. Further, Amir must look for duplicate reservations due to spelling errors, or check if the guest ahs already checked with another local hotel, further look for repeat reservations for same night or later evenings.
Further verification of the guaranteed reservations can be done by legitimizing the reservation using a credit card. Further the status of the corporate clients and their credit status in order to check if the corporate clients stand on a good corporate standing with the hotel.
These data checks would help Amir to account for the bookings and the expected overbooking status for the day. After checking the confirmed and provisional bookings, he can decide as to whom he need to accommodate first. Dates of reservation would also help him prioritize the booking priority status. Further, the number and dates of departure of guests would allow him to identify the possible vacant rooms he might have on the day. Using these he can make a probable overbooking status that would help him to analyze the situation better. Based on the guest’s reason of arrival he can be further categorized as likely to have a high chance of cancellation or not.
Further, if the guest is a regular, has a corporate relationship with the hotel, or is a patron, then they must be give special treatment, as they are the constant business for the hotel and are expected to remain as permanent customers. Thus, such loyal customers must be given special treatment and preferences in case of overbooking.
Relationship management in case of overbooking is very important. VIP guests who are patrons of the hotel, or corporate guests who guarantee payment even in case of no-show are customers who can be considered to be loyal to the hotel and require the services of the hotel annually. Thus, maintaining relationships with these clients is important.
First, Amir must try to provide them accommodation in the hotel and if he fails to find any room in the hotel, he must contact other local hotels and try to get reservations done for them. If even this is not possible then Amir must consult with the general manager of the hotel and then contact the customers at the earliest and apologize and explain the situation. However, the overbooking is probably due to the festival and the walk-in guests that the ongoing festival ahs brought. Thus, the first means of reducing the overbooking is cancelling the walk-in bookings.
Then any overstays from one-time customers must be asked to cancel their overstay or their accommodation be made with some other hotel after explaining the situation and on receiving their consent. Thus, whatever is the situation, VIP and corporate guests must be given special treatment. Apart from this, Amir must call corporate clients to confirm their reservations, and confirm that the reservation must be confirmed before a stipulated time latest. Status of the corporate clients and their credit status with the hotel must be verified before confirming reservations.
Amir must contact other local hotels and convince them that the guests that they would transfer would come with guaranteed payment for no-show cases. Further, Calgary was willing to help the other hotels when they faced such a situation in future. Further, the hotel can transfer only the guaranteed and advance-paid reservations to the other hotels, wherein there is no confusion and ambiguity of no-show cases.
Walking in guests, if necessary, must be done with utmost humility and patience. For this, the best time would be to apologize right after the arrival of the guest, after providing some refreshments to them. Then as compensation, Amir must find accommodation for the guests in other hotels at the earliest, and then offer a complementary, on the house dinner or lunch invitation. Depending on the status of the reservation Amir may also offer a free day and night stay at the hotel for the guests on a later date.
Reference
Bardi, James A. Hotel front office management. New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons, 2007.