How time flies...

"Manager for a day” in Radisson Gold Coast is a wonderful program. I leant a lot of knowledge and at least got familiar with front desk even though it was only one day.

Before I received an email from Sara that is about whether I could get Radisson at 6:30am. I understood that I would follow the morning shift at front office. So I got up early at 5:30am. At that time, I was so sleepy…

Radisson GC has a relationship with a Golf Club. And they have huge area for customer playing golf there. It has beautiful scenery. For hotel, it’s not a big one with only about 300 total room numbers. I feel relaxed there because no one rush there, no one yell there, no one push things there. Everything and everyone are just at the right place.

I followed the front office manager for a whole day. His name is Paul who is a lovely and patient guy. He just came here at Feb this year and had a period of honey moon before. He came back to work at Sep. So actually, he is also a fresh man. But he seems like very knowledgeable and confident. We went through the daily routine in the early morning, like checking morning report and making sure the figures correct, doing roster and cash security, filling some figures and preparing stuffs for daily meeting. Everyday, each head of department will get together and have a morning meeting. GM goes through everything of every department. Paul talked about some customers’ complaints and other relevant things. It lasted half an hour. After meeting, Paul taught us some jobs he got do. We used Opera to check the customers billing and balance some revenues.

Before the lunch, Paul showed rooms for us. There are over 10 room types in Radisson GC. Some rooms have golf court views with higher rates. This hotel is planning to update some facilities like TV and room type to cater new demands. One interesting thing is there is a pink parrot standing beside the door just like a doorman to welcome the customers.

We had a relaxed lunch with Paul and Jenny who is the manager of HR. We chatted about our education, plan and thoughts of hotel. I think it lets us know each other better.

There was another meeting afternoon. It’s kind of the revenue forecast meeting which they do once a week. GM, conference manager, sales manager, revenue controller, front office manager and two of us trainee were attend the meeting. It’s about the forecast of occupancy and rate in six months and some proposed groups. They discussed how to maximize the revenue and push which part of sales to get more business. Later, Paul taught us more about Opera. He operated this system very fast and proficient.

How time flies. I finished my “manager for a day” but Paul needed continuous to work. It seems like working in hotel equals to working overtime. In additional, I asked Paul some questions about working in hotel. He suggested that first of all, we need to have higher English level to make sure we can handle some unexpected requests. And then, be enthusiastic and follow the brand standard. Last thing is always smile. One day is not enough to learn and to see. But this is awesome program for students to know better about hotel industry and have the main idea about hotel.