Morgan Black has been described by the corporate
office as the Miracle Worker because
of the troubled properties that were turned
around under Morgan’s leadership. It is
hoped the story at the Coug Inn will have the
same happy ending; however, the Coug Inn is
in a remote location, hundreds of miles from
any other corporate properties.
The Coug Inn is a 150-room full-service
property with several medium-sized conference
rooms; it caters mostly to business travelers
and visitors affiliated with the local
university. The bulk of the revenue is generated
between August and May, with periods
when classes are not in session being extremely
slow. The hotel is at full occupancy
only during football weekends and commencement.
Occupancy has been declining
for the last year or so, with last month’s
RevPAR at a record low. Since arriving at the
Coug Inn, Morgan has made several observations
about the hotel’s situation. It seems that
most of the problems involve the front desk.
After analyzing several previous months’
comment cards and informally chatting with
guests at the hotel, Morgan has sensed real
dissatisfaction with the check-in process. Several
common themes have emerged: The
process seems to take forever, the paperwork
at check-in is perceived as lengthy and hard to
fill out, the front desk clerks always appear to
be running around “like chickens with their
heads cut off,” and guests have been checked
into rooms that were not clean.
After discussing the problems with the
front desk manager, Morgan is in a quandary
about how best to move toward a solution.
The front desk manager complains that the
reservations staff does not always submit the
day’s reservations to the front desk in a timely
manner. Thus, guests arrive, and the desk
clerks have no idea what rate was quoted or
the room preference of the guest. This results
in the guest having to refurnish information
that was previously given when making the
reservation. Many times, clerks are forced to
leave the guest at the counter while they attempt
to retrieve missing information from
the reservations. Further, with over 65 percent
of the housekeeping staff speaking a first language
other than English, communication is
difficult at best, and room status is often mistaken.
The front desk manager suggests that
the hotel advertise its check-in time to be
from “say around 1:00 P.M. or 2:00 P.M. to 7:00
P.M.” to reduce the crunch time and allow
front desk clerks more time to work with each
guest’s check-in needs. The front desk manager
further states that the new hotel in town,
the Suite to Sleep Inn, has an earlier check-in
time and “it seems to work okay for them!”
Morgan asks the front desk manager how the
staff might respond to moving to a fully automated
property management system. The response
was not favorable; the front desk
manager mumbled something about “old
dogs and new tricks” and that the corporate
office had not put any money into the place in
years. What would make Morgan think they
would put out the cash now?