HAMG 1313 Front Desk Procedures Midterm Exams

Question 1

Is geography important to the resort hotel; population to the residential hotel and businesses to the commercial hotel?

Answer 1

True

Question 2

Because hotels have large, fixed costs (interest on debt payments, licenses, taxes, etc.), they are able to break even at very low rates of occupancy.

Answer 2

False

Question 3

Most cities in the U.S.A., New York City especially, have limited their hotels to either a commercial or residential class; that is, commercial hotels may not accept long-term guests.

Answer 3

False

Question 4

A hotel that sold 240 rooms last night with a total rooms revenue of $24,000 has an average daily rate of $100.00.

Answer 4

True

Question 5

Legal definition and regulations by the U.S. Bureau of the Census require properties of 500 rooms or more to be called Hotels, those of 50 rooms or less to be called Motels, and those in between to be called Motor Inns or Motor Hotels.

Answer 5

False

Question 6

Have limited-service hotels adopted newer terminology in an effort at better marketing, including:

Answer 6

(E) Both A & C (A – Select Service and C – Focused Service)

Question 7

Would the smallest degree of double occupancy most likely be in?

Answer 7

(D) Business hotels

Question 8

Is the important Occupancy Ratio computed as:

Answer 8

(A) Number of Rooms Occupied/Number of Rooms Available

Question 9

Which of the following is NOT usually considered to be a characteristic of the hotel industry?

Answer 9

(D) Innovation

Question 10

Brand equity is the inherent value that the shopper’s recognition gives to the brand. There is equity (value) in the brand if that recognition carries a positive image.

Answer 10

True

Question 11

Casino hotels earn most of their revenue from casino wins, assigning a secondary role to room sales, which is the primary earner of traditional hotels.

Answer 11

True

Question 12

Spas are widely available, but not profitable; hotels offer them merely as an amenity – part of the amenity creep that competition has forced on many hotels.

Answer 12

False

Question 13

Which lodging company does not own, nor manage, nor lease, nor franchise hotels

Answer 13

(A) Best Western

Question 14

Which components would be in a mixed-use project?

Answer 14

A) Hotels
B) Retail
C) Entertainment
D) Businesses
(E) Government
All of the above excepts Government

Question 15

Which criterion is needed for a hotel name to carry brand equity?

Answer 15

(E) All of the above

Question 16

Historically, which is the most influential factor driving innovation in the hotel industry?

Answer 16

(C) Amenity creep

Question 17

Are (REITS)

Answer 17

(B) Real Estate Investment Trusts – methods of financing real estate, often hotels, through shares sold to the public

Question 18

Public corporations such as Marriott issue stock, which represents ownership, numbering in the hundreds of millions of shares.

Answer 18

True

Question 19

Hotels have eliminated many middle management positions, which flattens the organizational chart and throws more responsibility on the remaining managers and the employees.

Answer 19

True – Many intermediate management jobs were lost during the downturn of the late 1990s and early into the new millennium. The upturn that started in 2004 has reversed that trend to some degree.

Question 20

With all the advances in security-monitoring equipment, the hotel industry has been able to minimize personnel in this department, thus bringing down their fixed costs.

Answer 20

False – Cell phone usage has all but eliminated telephone revenues. The high prices that hotels were charging certainly contributed to customer avoidance of hotel telephone usage.

Question 21

Group and convention bookings for a fixed number of room nights are forgiven if the event is unexpectedly interrupted by acts of God, which are referenced in the contract as _____.

Answer 21

(C) Force majeure

Question 22

Room sales:

Answer 22

(D) All of the above

Question 23

Concierge floors are:

Answer 23

(D) All of the above

Question 24

Today’s beds are longer than their predecessors; that length is called ______ length:

Answer 24

(A) California

Question 25

The individual responsible for the full scope of the operation at the unit (hotel) level is generally titled the ______.

Answer 25

(C) GM General Manager

Question 26

Interestingly, out-of-inventory rooms do not affect rooms available for sale (the denominator in an occupancy equation) while out-of-order rooms do affect inventory.

Answer 26

False – It is exactly the opposite of what is stated in this question.

Question 27

Early arrivals, like cancellations and no-shows, reduce the number of expected arrivals.

Answer 27

False – Early arrivals have no impact on today’s reservations. They come from future reservations, like tomorrow or the next day.

Question 28

Overbooking is a standard procedure for hotels is a given; the real question is “how many rooms should be overbooked?”

Answer 28

True – The practice of overbooking ensures that 100% of available rooms will be used, based on analysis of the average number of cancellations and no-shows.

Question 29

A hotel reservation is essentially a legal contract. But lawsuits against guests for no-shows and lawsuits by guests against hotels for being walked are very rare.

Answer 29

True

Question 30

Interestingly, advance-deposit reservations have the greatest likelihood of no-show. Nonguaranteed reservations (6 p.m.) generally have the highest rates of arrival.

Answer 30

False – It is exactly the opposite of what is stated in this question.

Question 31

Room availability forecasts often allow for adjustments based upon historical data. In regard to these adjustments, which of the following is true:

Answer 31

(A) No-shows are guests with reservations (either guaranteed or non-guaranteed) who never arrive.

Question 32

Examples of factors influencing the Adjusted Room Counts:

Answer 32

(E) All of the above – Percentages can change due to the influence of any of these factors and even the degree of media coverage concerning them.

Question 33

Are the department affected by the room count projections, Housekeeping, Security, Valet service, and In-Room minibars?

Answer 33

(E) None of the above since all departments are affected

Question 34

Hurdle pricing is the term given to the competitive environment in reservation offices. It requires each reservationist to better his/her record by either the number of reservations taken or the number of days booked or the average rate of the booking.

Answer 34

False – Hurdle pricing establishes a minimum room rate for each day regardless of room types.

Question 35

Online sites that offer distressed room inventory at deeply discounted rates are referred to as “opaque” because they make it difficult for the user to know which property being offered.

Answer 35

True – Sites such as Priceline.com do not reveal the property until the transaction has been completed.

Question 36

The price-occupancy mix is a management decision because the same total rooms revenue (yield) can be achieved by either higher rates and lower occupancy or lower rates and higher occupancy.

Answer 36

True

Question 37

Yield management was initially introduced by the hotel industry in the late 1960s The rapid development of yield management technology, however, is attributed to the airlines because they had the financial resources to implement this capital-intensive investment.

Answer 37

False – Both the idea and the implementation began with the airlines

Question 38

Are yield managers (also called revenue managers) responsible for increasing room rates as occupancy rises?

Answer 38

(A) Increasing room rates as occupancy rises. (True)

Question 39

Since yield management is based on these unique characteristics can it be a successful strategy seasonality of demand and high fixed and low variable costs?

Answer 39

(E) Both A and B - True

Question 40

Does strategic Account Management refer to one sales manager representing all hotels within an entire chain?

Answer 40

(True) (D) Marriott launched this concept in 2007. It has proven very successful as a reorganization of its sales force, centralizing them in regional offices so that they can handle properties up and down the brand, fitting them to the travel needs of the individual account (such as the San Diego Chargers).

Question 41

Central reservation offices (CROs):

Answer 41

(E) All of the above

Question 42

With the broad use of online reservation bookings, the need for upselling is not as important as it once was.

Answer 42

False – While it is more challenging than ever with the use on online booking at discounted rates, it makes it all the more important to offer a broad range of room types and have trained reservationists and front office staff discern the “better” fit for the guest.

Question 43

Under pressure from anti-terrorist groups, the federal government’s Office of Homeland Security has required the hotel industry to standardize all reservation codes across the industry. This allows for easy identification of travelers.

Answer 43

False – No such thing.

Question 44

Guarantee fees are used to guarantee certain guest requests, such as reserving a non-smoking room.

Answer 44

True – Such fees to guarantee guest requests are in the experimental phase.

Question 45

Many hotels choose to stay away from convention business because convention delegates generally spend less per day than other guest types.

Answer 45

False – Just the opposite, delegates spend more than average guests.

Question 46

Pressure to balance municipal budgets has forced Convention and Visitor Bureaus (CVBs) to limit their cooperation with lodging industry partners and reduce overall services to citywide convention groups.

Answer 46

False – Just the opposite, CVBs are expanding services to create tourism dollars for their communities.

Question 47

It is standard procedure to offer rate discounts to

Answer 47

(E) All of the above

Question 48

In order to retain some sense of a personalized service when confirming a reservation, hoteliers as a whole do not provide confirmation numbers:

Answer 48

(E) None of these since all are used to confirm reservations

Question 49

In the context of this chapter, special coding is NOT used for Walk-In types of reservations.

Answer 49

(C ) Walk-ins

Question 50

If members of a convention group are offered a range of rates, is the rate quote said to be a spread or sliding rate?

Answer 50

(C) Spread or sliding rate