DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A COMPUTERIZED HOTEL FRONT OFFICE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

ABSTRACTThis project “Hotel front Office Management System” tends to deal with the system of all the information needs of the different sections of a hotel. The hotel presidential ltd (which is a large and fast growing hotel) has because of its size and location, made its mark in the tourism industry in the city. Most times, the hotel runs into problem of getting necessary information in the sections of registration of guest, guest bookings and reservation, check in and check out process of a guest, and other sections of the hotel which include the accounts and security sections. In essence, the study led to the development of “Hotel-info package” which will help a long way in reducing the problems encountered by the entire management and staff of the hotel. The power of the package is also seen in the area where time is of great importance. The package helps immensely in eliminating wasted time in the operation of the hotel service thereby enhancing effective customer service. All these form the substance of this work, chapter six deals with the documentation. Chapter seven details the outcome of the study. The project is recommended to various field.

 

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

The hotel front office management system in Nigeria is nothing to write home about. Apart form the five star hotels which are owed by the government, other smaller hotels owed by individuals do not keep to the standard needed for hotel operations. This is because the only reason for the setting up of a hotel is to maximize profit. They do not take into account the welfare and condition of their customers. This result in many of their customers not being satisfied after their stay in these hotels due to poor management and time wasting in the flow of information within and outside the hotel environment. Hotel presidential ltd will be used as my case study in examining the effect of computerization of hotel front office management system in our different hotels.

Hotel presidential ltd is one of the well known hotel in Enugu. It is located at No. 1 presidential road Enugu. The administration of hotel presidential is as follows: Executive Director, Board of Directors, Managing Director, Head of Department/ supervisors and staff. Make up of the firm are Admin. Dept, Account Dept.   reception, cash office, business centre telephone exchange, restaurant, bar, house keeping laundry, gardeners, reception waiters, store dept. driver section, kitchen dept, car hire section and security dept.

ORGANIZATION OF THE WROK

Chapter one of this project explains what the project is all about. It deals with the aims and objectives of the projects, the statement of the problems, the importance of the study, limitations of the study and other information are included in this chapter.  Chapter two details fully the literature review of this project it gives adequate information on Hotel and its activities. More light is shed on the project. Chapter three highlights the existing system and its objectives. The input, process and output analysis is also highlighted. The problem of the existing system is also mentioned in this chapter Chapter four details the design of the new system. the necessary software and hardware requirements for implements of new system are mentioned here. The input and output specifications and their design and file system are shown. System and program flow chart are drawn here. Chapter five, program is written and tested and was found suitable for the new system.

DOCUMENT INTEGRITY:

This is viewed in the context of the safety, invalidity of the records in the document files used in the report generation. In terms of safety, the nature of the system (manual) makes it vulnerable to theft, fire or accidental destruction. This makes the system unsafe as the time needed to replace lost data or files in enormously large.

COST : This is the greatest problem of the hotel. The hotel tends to loose a lot of money running the hotel manually.

TIME: Going by the present system of operation, time is consumed in the handling of operation and management of information in the hotel.

These problems and many other not listed above due to limitations, form the basis of this write – up .

1.2     PURPOSE OF STUDY.

This study is designed to help the hotel front officer to handle the flow and manage the use of information in the hotel operations effectively. This study also tries to give an indept book in the easiest and most effective way for the growth and development of hotel industry in the  country. Finally, the study will help new investors in the hotel industry to make the right decisions and steps needed to start up a hotel.

1.3     AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The objective of the study are as follows:-

1. To provide better services for the various guests either permanent, temporary or causal guests that comes to lodge or stay in the hotel.

2. To produce a system where management of information and output report will be produced much faster, more accurately and more detailed to the management and guest of hotel.

3. To keep records that are compact, integrated and updated.

1.4   SCOPE OF THE STUDY.

This study is aimed at finding out how effective the computerization of a hotel front office management system will improve the operations of the hotel system in hotel presidential ltd. however, out of the several departments that make up the hotel. This research project is restricted to only one section. Reception (front office) section.

1.6   ASUMPTIONS

Due to insufficient information, I assumed the following:

1. The records of information about the guest has not been computerized.

2. The people that are going to use the software are computer literate.

1.7   DEFINITION OF TERMS

1. Guest: The guest are used in the contest of the work refers to individual, companies or corporate bodies who spends some time in the hotel either as permanent, temporary or casual guest.

2. RECEIPTS: This is a piece of paper which contains the description of expenditure and amount paid for a service by the guest and also included is the name and address of the guest.

SYSTEM FILES

ARRIVAL FILES: This is a master file consisting of the guest name, companies name and address, state, country, nationality, profession etc which also includes the mode of payment to be used by the guest.

MENU FILE: This is a transaction file used in the new system. it consists of the description of food, the price of the goods and the menu code.

REST FILE: This is also a transaction file that contains information about the restaurant bill, the room price reference number, dates etc.