Looking back at my early days in the hospitality world, my shadowing period didn’t exist at all. As a matter of fact, on my second day of work in a medium-scale hotel, my manager called in sick and left me alone with a rush of 30 plus people wanting to check in without ever showing me how to do the key override and billing split software.

This made me wonder about the crazy onboarding process in the hospitality field compared to other industries.

Anybody working on the front desk or night audit position, what is your biggest “thrown to the wolves” experience?

I used to be passionate about this job, but after 3 years of being in it, realize how low pay it is, and absolutely no growth unless you have to kiss butt, or move locations... I left with tears in my eyes. I still love the nature of the job, always enjoy solving customer issues even when they are mad, but the hours, the pay , the politic,... wondering what keep you all stay in this career for so long

Hi everyone! I manage a tiny property in Texas. None of us involved have hospitality experience, so sometimes I have a question like this! When you have rooms closed out for one reason or another, how does it affect your occupancy calculation? We use WebRezPro. We have one housekeeper, so she gets a couple days off a week. I will close some rooms out so that she can have a day off. My boss has been seeking funding from some of his investors, and he’s been using our occupancy numbers that are coming from WebRez.. but I just noticed that if I have closed out all un-booked rooms, our occupancy shows 100%.. my boss kinda freaked out, worried that he was misrepresenting our success. I can see both perspectives on this. Obviously we have rented 100% of the rooms that are AVAILABLE. But that doesn’t mean we have rented 100% of our rooms. What’s the industry standard here? I appreciate your time!

New hire at a courtyard Marriott hotel in the central land area. So blessed to finally get a foot in the door with a job here.

As we are going through new general management changes - I’ve been trying to get to know my co workers and how to learn the ropes with in the workplace.

Any advice on taking a role in the hotel business. I’m mainly bartending at the bistro in the lobby. Although been asked a few questions on other aspects of the industry.

I noticed we don’t have a physical copy of our menu - do you think with the amount of time on my side I should construct a menu. I’ve looked online for our menus and they have it posted. Maybe just copy that and laminate a few to have at the bar rather than guest looking up at the tiny descriptions on the flat screens behind me.

My fiancé and I are getting married in Portugal next year and are currently trying to secure room blocks at two different hotels. Both hotels have told us that we need to provide them with a list of the guests staying in the block, rather than allowing guests to book their own rooms.

We were under the impression that the typical process is for guests to book directly with the hotel using a group code or booking link while paying individually. Instead, it sounds like we’d have to collect everyone’s information and submit it to the hotel ourselves.

Is this normal, particularly in Europe or Portugal?

We are snowbirds that drive to warm weather every fall and return in the spring and I've got a hotel Credit card that racks up the points. For the past three years now we've stayed at the same hotels along the way and we've always used points for the stay. My question is, As repeat guests using points to stay, does the hotel view this in a positive or negative way? For example one of the hotels we stay at is managed by the same couple and I think we've stayed there six times so far and always used points. Does the hotel lose out if we use points vs CC? I didn't know exactly how that works and does it affect their profit/loss bottom line.

Hello! This is my first time to work in Hotel Industry and i’m kinda nervous because this is also my first time doing accounts payable.

How was the hotel accounting experience? What to expect? Thank you

We have all been there after our first month of work in a hotel when the guest requests some special service that we never got trained on in the training shifts that we did before getting hired.

Can you recall what was the thing that you had to learn the hard way because it was totally forgotten during the onboarding process?

I recently had a second stay at a small, family-operated independent hotel. Both times I booked through Agoda (just because the price was better).

On this second visit, the check-in was insanely fast and they completely waived the usual security deposit. I’m a very clean, quiet, and low-maintenance guest, so it made me wonder:

Do small hotels maintain internal guest notes/profiles based on past stays, even if booked through an OTA? Or was skipping the deposit just a coincidence? Curious to hear how it works from the inside!

Hi all,

In speaking with one of my coworkers the other day about differences between onboarding processes, we came up with examples such as an extreme info dump at one hotel that resulted in a sink-or-swim Day 1 process. At the next location, there were no written guides and just days of being shadowed by upper level management.

For those in front desk, housekeeping, or management roles:

What is one mistake in training that hotels make time and again?
What is one thing that the hotel did to actually help you succeed?

Everyone has come across or gone through an onboarding process that was a total disaster. Getting the new employee thrown behind the desk during peak check-ins just two days into the job, and then leaving them to learn from senior employees who are doing a whole shift themselves.

Describe the most chaotic training process that you have witnessed at a hotel? What is one thing you wish to change about the onboarding process at your hotel?

Hey everyone,

I’ve noticed a huge variation in how different hotels onboard and train their teams. In some properties, new hires get a massive info-dump on day one and are then left to sink or swim. In others, senior staff end up burdened with training on the fly without much structure.

For those working in front desk, ops, or management:

• What’s a common training mistake you’ve seen that ended up creating major operational issues later on?
• On the flip side, what’s something a hotel did during onboarding that actually worked really well?

Would love to hear how your properties handle training!

I have been a supervisor and was recently just put up to a manager role again at a different hotel, and finding competent employees is a challenge. We frequently have front desk agents give the guests keys and don't check them into the rooms. We went someone else there who finds other people in the room. It doesn't even prompt them to make a key for the room until after they have been checked in. I honestly just want to fire these people when they do that.

However, while I wish we had a huge stack of qualified resumes that we could go through and pick the best ones, given management only lets us pay 15 dollars per hour for all front desk roles, it's the same pay they can get anywhere else, but you'd think you'd still get some people who just need regular training and not common sense training in the mix.

So we have a suite shop at my hotel that is stocked and priced on first shift. I work first shift 3 days a week and the other guy worked the remainder of the days. Since I switched to first shift (which I didn’t want to do but was basically given no other choice) they piled all the responsibilities of the suit shop on me and despite thinking I did it all right somehow I’m constantly running low on everything all the time and I never have time to price anything. Personally I feel like the responsibility should be split between all the workers and if you notice something is running low leave a not requesting to order it. The only reason I hate first shift is because of the damn suite shop, because that seems to be all my coworkers complain about but yet they don’t wanna put in the work to fix it. What should I do in this situation? Just ignore it?

I am looking at this for a small independent property where there is not enough volume to justify a full overnight front desk shift, but forwarding every call to the manager is getting old.

Most calls after the desk closes are not emergencies. It is usually late check-in questions, reservation changes, access issues, or something that just needs to be written down clearly for the morning team.

Voicemail feels unreliable because guests often do not leave enough detail. A phone tree feels annoying. Forwarding everything to one person works, but it is not sustainable.

For smaller hotels or inns that do not have a true 24/7 desk, what setup has worked best in practice?

Edit: thanks for all the replies. The most useful pattern seems to be splitting true emergencies from everything else, then making sure the non-emergency calls still leave enough detail for the morning team.

A call center with a clear decision tree makes sense, but I am also trying Solvea as a lighter version of that. The part that seemed relevant was not just “AI receptionist”, but having after-hours calls captured, summarized, and handed off so the desk is not guessing from a vague voicemail the next morning.

Still early, but it feels closer to what I was looking for than forwarding every call to one person or using a phone tree that only says “press 1 for emergency.”

So, we just booked into our hotel room at Tenerife. We’re meant to be here for two weeks. We came in, put our stuff in the room and left.

We came back, ate our food in the main room at the table and heard a cracking/crash like noise from the bedroom. Walked in and one of the bedside tables were just off the fucking hinges. We go tell the guy at the front desk, he comes up and takes pictures then comes up a little bit later and just takes the table.

We most literally hadn’t been in the bedroom for more than a couple seconds to place something on the bed before we left and hadn’t been in since we got back.

Will they charge us for this? It wasn’t our fault, we’ve been here for literally an hour at most.

I live in the New Orleans area. I have a robust resume with examples of front facing roles and also comm/mrkt roles. I always upload a specified cover letter, addressed to the hr manager/director after researching who that may be online. I never have, or will, use ai to create my materials but ensure to use words from the job listing in my cover letter, in order to avoid ai filtering my materials out.

I know for a fact that I care more about the guest experience than the average employee at any hotel or dining establishment. I truly want to help guests make fun, enjoyable memories. As a traveler myself I know little details can go a long way, and how defeating it feels to save up my hard earned money to be disregarded or overlooked, where I am spending it.

Sidenote- I don’t vape or am addicted to apps on my phone, nor allergic to tasks that are not “my job”.

How can I cut through the career database clutter and prove this to hiring managers?? I’ve read that I should show in person, but thought this might be presumptuous. I am open to almost any role and have full availability. Let me know experts! Please and thank you!!

Hi just wanted to know since I'm gonna start living in hotels for a while soon what are the best utensils or hacks for heating up or cooking food in the microwave?

So has the title suggests….

Basically what happened is I had forgotten to check-in two rooms in the system and “occupied check-in” occurred. This happened on two different occasions a day apart.

I can fully understand what I did was wrong and can’t even be mad if they do decide to let me go

I’ve worked at this property for about 2 years now and was in prospect of a promotion but not anymore since one of my colleague seems to be more favorable.

Recently it has been a bit draining cos what FD job isn’t .

Just looking for any sort of advice or even if I should think about switching careers.

Cheers!

This is for hotel staff, just out of curiosity do you now and then give a customer a sneaky upgrade on their room? If so, what makes you lean towards doing so?

I’ve worked a few jobs where I’d give customers something extra special if they were polite, wondering if other people do the same. Seems rare now days lol I feel like most people are so over it these days

Hello Everyone,

Apologies if this forum is not the place for this kind of consumer Q but, I booked a hotel reservation through a discount travel booking site (super.com) on Saturday- when I called the hotel today (Monday), they couldn’t find a reservation under my name.

The travel site’s support told me that I booked through them and they book through Expedia which transmits the reservation to the hotel, so there is a delay before the hotel receives it (which could take up to a business week). Essentially, they are are intermediary site and this is the reason for the delay.

For anyone who works at a hotel front desk, in reservations or is familiar with OTA’s:
-is this actually how the booking process works
-is it common for reservations made through third party sites (especially given the alleged intermediary nature of the site I actually booked through) to take a couple of days before appearing in the hotel’s system
-at what point would you start to suspect there is an issue versus just a processing delay

I knowingly rolled the dice booking a highly discounted rate through this site after reading very mixed reviews online about it and understand the recourse I have moving forward in terms of cancellation through them, etc. but am looking for anyone whose knows this side of the business to chime in.

Additionally, today after I called the hotel and was told they didn’t have record of my reservation, I did book another reservation via trip advisor which I’m confident will be valid. Knowing there are seemingly and allegedly a lot of links in the chain for the first reservation I’ve made, I’m wondering if anyone foresees that causing some confusion presently? My first reservation is slightly lower than the one I booked through a OTA I’m confident in so if the first turns out to be legit and valid, I’d cancel the second but am wondering if it’s advisable to see how this first reservation shakes out or if because know the hotel may see at some point in the next few days a reservation under my name for two dates twice, if that is likely to cause more confusion and I should just be canceling the first reservation.

Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

**UPDATED Question for those who may know: like mentioned above after realizing something via super.com was unsurprisingly amiss, I booked via TripAdvisor. I called the hotel about 1-2 hours after and they did not have a record of the reservation but mentioned this can sometimes take a day to reflect in their system. I’m keen to just cancel the super.con reservation by tomorrow am in fear there could potentially be some confusion somewhere/ anywhere in either of these bookings with the hotel potentially seeing separate reservations under the same name/ dates. Does anyone with knowledge on the hotel side, foresee confusion with this aspect or am I being paranoid?

**ANOTHER UPDATE: the hotel booked is a Marriott, the Moana Surfrider in Oahu so not a small hotel, if that changes anyone’s interpretation of their backend reservations systems via OTAs (like trip advisor which I booked through after super.com)

Hello guys, I'm new to this field and I have an interview for this Job PMS Installer they using Opera working with hotels, they didn't ask for any experience, But i need just to catch up and get the basics for this field and the logic concepts and if they any crash course for Oracle Opera i will be thankful.

Fresh grad here (Tourism) with 3+ years of BPO experience as a working student.

Grabe, ngayon ko lang na-realize kung gaano kahirap mag-apply directly sa hotel industry. 😭 Halos lahat ng napuntahan ko today, ang sabi is dumaan daw muna sa agency before ma-hire.

I honestly thought mas madali since I have customer service experience and a Tourism degree, pero parang iba talaga ang hiring process sa hotels.

May marerecommend ba kayong agency na nagha-hire for hotel positions? Or baka may tips kayo on how to break into the industry?

I’m mainly looking for:
Front Desk Associate
Guest Service Officer / Guest Service Center
Concierge
Reception

Around Quezon City, Pasig, Mandaluyong, BGC, or Makati sana.

Any advice or referrals would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!