How to Accurately calculate Room Count in hotels

Front desk agents need to know exactly how many rooms are available, especially if the hotel expects to operate near 100 per cent occupancy.

Once procedures for gathering room count information are established, planning procedures can be extended to longer periods to form a more reliable basis for revenue, expense, and labour forecasting.

Below points will help the front desk team to do an accurate room count :

• Make counts of the rack and reservations. On tight days, a count should be made at 07:00 Am, Noon, 03:00 PM, and 06:00 PM. On Normal Days, a 07:00 AM and 06:00 PM Count will be OK.
•  Check Room RackA card index system that is constantly updated to reflect occupied and vacant rooms. In the evening;... against the folio bucket or Open balance report to catch sleepers and skippers.
•  Check housekeeping reports against the room rack to catch sleepers and skippers
•  Check for rooms that are due out, but still have the balance on their folios, especially where credit cards are the indicated source of payment.
•  Check reservations for any Duplications.
•  Check all the reservation systems to make sure the reservation status of all cancelled reservations has been marked as cancelled on the system.
•  Check the Switchboard, Telephone Rack, Or Alphabetical room rack to make sure that the guest is not already registered.
•  Call the local airport or Airport representative for a report on cancelled flights.
•  Check the weather report for cities from which several guests are expected.
•  Check reservations against convention blocks to catch duplications.
•  Check with other hotels for duplicate reservations if a City event team had booked the hotel room as a second choice.
•  Check arrival dates on all reservation forms with the arrival list from the PMS to make sure none was entered wrongly.
•  Check the room cancellation list.
• After the property’s cut-off time, if it becomes necessary, pull any reservations that were not guaranteed or prepaid.
•  If any rooms are out-of-order or not presently in use, check to see if they can be made up. Let housekeeping know when a tight day is expected so that all possible rooms are made up.
•  Before Leaving from work, convey in writing all pertinent information to the oncoming staff.