Exam 4: Forecasting Availability and Overbooking

Room count forecasts prepared by the reservations department are used for the sole purpose of staffing the front office. Managers in other departments do not refer to occupancy forecasts when establishing their own staffing schedules (for example, restaurant or housekeeping staff schedules).

Early departure fees:

Reservations without deposit or guarantee (non-guaranteed reservations) are sometimes referred to as 4pm- or 6pm-hold reservations. That is because by 4pm or 6pm (or whatever other time might be hotel policy-like possibly noon for a resort property), the hotel has the right to cancel the reservation if the guest has not yet arrived.

A hotel reservation is essentially a legal contract. Therefore, in the case of an overbooking situation, hotels or guests could probably sue for breech of contract. However, few ever do-it's too much work for too little return.

Because each day's reservation forecast begins with the previous day's occupancy, long-range forecasting is considered accurate only to about thirty days.

Using the following data, how many rooms are available using an adjusted room count? The hotel has 330 rooms. Last night's occupancy was 90%. 6pm reservations are 100. Guaranteed reservations are 100. There are 200 rooms due to check out today. Understays are projected at 2%. Overstays are projected at 4%. Early arrivals are projected at 3%. 6pm cancellations are projected at 10%. Guaranteed cancellations are projected at 5%. No shows are projected at 2%. How many rooms are available using an adjusted room count:

The number of anticipated stayover rooms in an adjusted room count calculation generally becomes a moot point for those calculations made after the check-out hour.

A simple, unadjusted room count does not consider historical trends (like higher no-shows on Wednesdays) in the calculation.

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

Assume that a 200 room hotel sold 50% of its rooms last night. Today, we anticipate that 75 rooms will depart. We hold 60 6pm reservations and 90 guaranteed reservations. There are no advance deposits. What is the forecasted number of rooms available for sale?

Overbooking is caused in part by:

Using the following data, how many rooms are available using a simple, unadjusted room count? The hotel has 260 rooms. Last night's occupancy was 80%. Today there are 5 rooms out-of-inventory. 6pm reservations are 80. Guaranteed reservations are 100. There are 150 rooms due to check out today. How many rooms are available using a simple, unadjusted room count:

A guest remaining in the hotel at least one day past his originally scheduled departure date isknown as a(n):

Historically, when only a few rooms remained available for a given date at a hotel prior to the introduction to "last room availability"systems, the hotel's reservation manager had to "close"availability with the central reservation office. This meant that remaining sales had to be done by the hotel, but this method prevented the CRO from overbooking the date.

Advance deposit reservations have a greater likelihood of no-show than non-guaranteed reservations.

It is probable that on most days, the percentage rate of no-shows with guaranteed reservations would be lower than the percentage rate of no-shows with non-guaranteed reservations.

A 500-room hotel had 80% occupancy last night. Today's expected departures are 250, arrivals are 350, and there are 10 rooms out of inventory. How many rooms are available for sale?

If a 320-room hotel sold 160 rooms and had 20 rooms out of inventory (OOI), what wouldits occupancy percentage be:

A hotel might sell a room to a "walk-in"guest who arrived without a reservation. This is the same as "walking"a guest into one of the hotel's unreserved and vacant guest rooms. In other words, "walking"a guest and a "walk-in"guest are basically the same thing.

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.