PAIR ACTIVITY: Case Study Analysis: THSH2003
PAIR ACTIVITY: Case Study Analysis: THSH2003
PAIR ACTIVITY: Case Study Analysis: THSH2003
1. Work in pairs and read the case below. Then, answer the questions that follow.
It is Thursday morning at The STI Hotel. The reservations manager has printed the list of reservations
for the day. The front office staff has prepared 229 kits for guests who have pre-registered for the Pet
Owners of the Philippines (POP) Conference. The STI Hotel has been designated the headquarters for
the cat owners, while The Avalon Hotel, located two (2) blocks away, has been designated the
headquarters for the dog owners. The participants in the POP Conference are supposed to start
arriving at noon.
The Avalon Hotel had a full house on Wednesday night. A planning group, who has occupied 111 rooms
for the Biology Researchers Conference was in the hotel. They held a meeting into the early hours of
Thursday morning. Several of the guests posted Do Not Disturb (DND) signs on their doors.
Caleb De Guzman, the Director of Engineering, has noticed the air-conditioning going on and off on
the fifth and sixth floors. Caleb investigates the problem and estimates that it will require about 12
hours of repair time. Caleb gets on the phone to the front office to report the problem, but the desk
clerks are busy, thereby failing to answer the phone. Meanwhile, another repair call comes in, and
Caleb is off again. The air-conditioning situation is never reported to the front office.
In the hotel’s kitchen, the chef is busy preparing vendor orders for the day. He is also planning the
food production schedule for the POP Conference. The chef has left a word with one of the suppliers
to return his call early in the afternoon to clarify an order for the banquet tonight. The organizer for
the POP wants a special Swiss chocolate ice cream cake roll. The sales office has also included an order
for two (2) ice sculptures—one (1) cat and one (1) dog. The banquet manager and several of his crew
are scheduled to arrive about three (3) hours before the banquet to begin setting up furniture and
tabletops. The servers will arrive about an hour before the banquet begins.
It is now 11:00 AM. A group of conferees has arrived to register. They have brought their cats along
and want to know where they can house them. The front desk clerk does not know where the cats
should be housed. He calls the sales department and asks for directions. The sales department says
that the person who organized this conference specifically told the participants that they were to leave
their pets at home. This was not to be a pet show, only a business conference.
The housekeeping staff is unable to get into the rooms (checkout time is noon). The Biology
Researchers Conference attendees have not risen because of the late planning meeting. Also, two (2)
of the room attendants did not report to work this morning.
It is now 1:30 PM. The majority of the pet owners are in the lobby with their pets, waiting to get into
the rooms. With the air-conditioning out of order and the lobby in chaos, the odor and noise are
beyond description. Housekeeping calls and says that it will need about two (2) more hours before the
first 75 rooms can be released. The front office manager is up to her ears in kitty litter. It is not the
best of situations.
Just when it seems that nothing else can go wrong, a group of 10 POP members arrives in the lobby
with guaranteed reservations. The hotel is completely booked, and these additional reservations
represent an overbooked situation. The reservation staff forgot to ask if these guests were cat or dog
owners. The clamor in the lobby is now unbearable—dogs are barking at cats, cats are hissing at dogs,
and guests are complaining loudly.
The banquet manager and his crew have finished setting up the room for the banquet. One of the
crew turns on the air-conditioning. There is a dull roar. Blue smoke pours from the vents. Thinking this
is only a temporary condition, he does not report this to the banquet manager. Later on, the banquet
manager instructs the setup crew to take the ice sculptures from the freezer and set them in front of
the podium and head table. The banquet servers will be arriving within an hour to start the
preparations for the banquet.
Reference:
Lifted and modified on 21 December 2020 from Bardi, J. A. (2003). Hotel front office management (3rd Ed.).
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
QUESTIONS:
A. What are the problems that can be identified in the case? Enumerate them briefly.
B. If you are the front office manager (FOM), how will you solve each of the problems at hand?
Discuss your recommendations in detail.
C. After the commotion has settled down, how will you analyze the situation? List the
opportunities for improving communications with the other departments involved. Briefly
discuss your suggestions per department.