Hotels and other accommodations are as diverse as the many family and business travelers they accommodate. The industry includes all types of lodging, from upscale hotels to RV parks. Motels, resorts, casino hotels, bed-and-breakfast inns, and boarding houses also are included. In fact, in 2004 nearly 62,000 establishments provided overnight accommodations to suit many different needs and budgets.
Establishments vary greatly in size and in the services they provide. Hotels and motels comprise the majority of establishments and tend to provide more services than other lodging places. There are five basic types of hotels - commercial, resort, residential, extended-stay, and casino. Larger properties offer a variety of services for their guests, including a range of restaurant and beverage service options - from coffee bars and lunch counters to cocktail lounges and formal fine-dining restaurants.
Some properties provide a variety of retail shops on the premises, such as gift boutiques, newsstands, drug and cosmetics counters, and barber and beauty shops. An increasing number of full-service hotels now offer guests access to laundry and valet services, swimming pools, and fitness centers or health spas.
Conventions and business meetings are major sources of revenue for hotels and motels that are specialized (commercial hotels) and have banquet rooms, exhibit halls, and spacious ballrooms to accommodate conventions, business meetings and wedding receptions.
Conference hotels are fully self-contained entities specifically designed for meetings. They provide physical fitness and recreational facilities for meeting attendees, in addition to state-of-the-art audiovisual and technical equipment, a business center, and banquet services.
Resort hotels and motels offer luxurious surroundings with a variety of recreational facilities, such as swimming pools, golf courses, tennis courts, game rooms, and health spas, as well as planned social activities and entertainment. Resorts typically are located in vacation destinations or near natural settings, such as mountains, the seashore, theme parks, or other attractions.
As a result, the business of many resorts fluctuates with the season. Some resort hotels and motels provide additional convention and conference facilities to encourage customers to combine business with pleasure. During the off season, many of these establishments solicit conventions, sales meetings, and incentive tours to fill their otherwise empty rooms; some resorts even close for the off-season.
Residential hotels provide living quarters for permanent and semi permanent residents. They combine the comfort of apartment living with the convenience of hotel services. Many have dining rooms and restaurants that also are open to residents and to the general public.
Extended-stay hotels combine features of a resort and a residential hotel. Typically, guests use these hotels for a minimum of 5 consecutive nights. These facilities usually provide rooms with fully equipped kitchens, entertainment systems, ironing boards and irons, office space with computer and telephone lines, fitness centers, and other amenities.
Casino hotels provide lodging in hotel facilities with a casino on the premises. The casino provides table wagering games and may include other gambling activities, such as slot machines and sports betting. Casino hotels generally offer a full range of services and amenities.
In addition to hotels and motels, bed-and-breakfast inns, recreational vehicle (RV) parks, campgrounds, and rooming and boarding houses provide lodging for overnight guests.
Bed-and-breakfast inns provide short-term lodging in private homes or small buildings converted for this purpose and are characterized by highly personalized service and inclusion of breakfast in the room rate. Their appeal is quaintness, with unusual service and decor.
RV parks and campgrounds cater to people who enjoy recreational camping at moderate prices. Some parks and campgrounds provide service stations, general stores, shower and toilet facilities, and coin-operated laundries. While some are designed for overnight travelers only, others are for vacationers who stay longer. Some camps provide accommodations, such as cabins and fixed campsites, and other amenities, such as food services, recreational facilities and equipment, and organized recreational activities. Examples of these overnight camps include children's camps, family vacation camps, hunting and fishing camps, and outdoor adventure retreats that offer trail riding, white-water rafting, hiking, fishing, game hunting, and similar activities.
Other short-term lodging facilities in this industry include guesthouses, or small cottages located on the same property as a main residence, and youth hostels - dormitory-style hotels with few frills, occupied mainly by students traveling on limited budgets. Also included are rooming and boarding houses, such as fraternity houses, sorority houses, off-campus dormitories, and workers' camps. These establishments provide temporary or longer term accommodations that may serve as a principal residence for the period of occupancy. These establishments also may provide services such as housekeeping, meals, and laundry services.
Increased competition among establishments in this industry has spurred many independently owned and operated hotels and other lodging places to join national or international reservation systems, which allow travelers to make multiple reservations for lodging, airlines, and car rentals with one telephone call. Nearly all hotel chains operate online reservation systems through the Internet.
Hotel operations are becoming diverse and complex, but all positions require employees to maintain a customer-service orientation. Hoteliers recognize the importance of personal service and attention to guests; so they look for persons with positive personality traits and good communication skills when filling many guest services positions, such as desk clerk and host and hostess positions. Many hotel managers place a greater emphasis on customer service skills while providing specialized training in important skill areas, such as computer technology and software.
Although the skills and experience needed by workers in this industry depend on the specific occupation, most entry-level jobs require little or no previous training. Basic tasks usually can be learned in a short time. Almost all workers in the hotel and other accommodations industry undergo on-the-job training, which usually is provided under the supervision of an experienced employee or manager. Some large chain operations have formal training sessions for new employees.
Many hotels fill first-level manager positions by promoting administrative support and service workers - particularly those with good communication skills, a solid educational background, tact and loyalty. People with these qualities still advance to manager jobs but, more recently, lodging chains have primarily been hiring persons with four-year college degrees in the liberal arts or other fields and starting them in trainee or junior management positions.
In medieval times, the concierge was an officer of the King who was charged with executing justice, with the help of his bailiffs. The term concierge evolved from the French Comte Des Cierge, The Keeper of the Candles, who tended to visiting nobles in castles of the medieval era.
In 19th century and early 20th century apartment buildings, particularly in Paris, the concierge, often a middle-aged woman, had a small apartment on the ground floor and was able to monitor all comings and goings. However, such settings are now extremely rare; most concierges in small or middle-sized buildings have been replaced by the part-time services of janitors. These are less costly and less intrusive.
Some larger apartment buildings or groups of buildings retain the use of a concierge, without the traditional disposition whereas the concierge saw all comings and goings. The concierge may, for instance, keep the mail of absented dwellers; be entrusted with the keys of apartments in cases of emergencies in the absence of the inhabitant; and other services.
In hotels and certain other facilities, a concierge assists guests with various tasks like finding taxicabs, restaurants, and interesting places to visit. In upscale establishments, a concierge is often expected to "achieve the impossible", dealing with any request a guest may have, no matter how apocryphal or strange, relying on an extensive list of personal contacts with various local merchants and service providers.
Additionally there are private concierge service companies, that cater to individuals or organizations and provide a whole range of services. Typically provided services include travel arrangement, event planning, vacation planning, homewatch management and errand services to name a few. These independent concierges generally charge a fee on top of the cost of the service, to cover their time and expenses.
The owners and operators of concierge and errand service businesses are supported and advocated by the non-profit International Concierge and Errand Association and the National Concierge Association. These associations serve their members through essential resources, continuing education, networking opportunities and other professional endeavors. Hotel concierge staffs in the US have their own professional association, Les Clefs d'Or. Members can be distinguished by the gold keys they display on their lapels.
Bathroom attendants are workers stationed in a bathroom that provide tap water, soap, towels and an assortment of toiletries. They are a relatively recent phenomenon. Previously confined to extravagant restaurants or bars, bathroom attendants have begun to creep into mainstream society and can be found in moderately priced bars across metropolitan cities.
It is often the case that these bathroom attendants can seem presumptuous, pressuring clientele to accept a spray of aftershave or an array of personal grooming services, in exchange for a tip.
It is thought by some that such services apply implied pressure to offer financial reward for a fairly limited service, and as such have seen the discussion of social etiquette in such situations.
Chef is a term commonly used to refer to an individual who cooks professionally. Within a restaurant however, chef (French for chief or head) is often only used to refer to one person: the one in charge of everyone else in the kitchen. This is usually the Executive Chef. There are many kinds of kitchen organizations, with the titles and duties for each position varying depending on the particular restaurant. In general, the hierarchy in a classical kitchen brigade is as follows:
The Chef de Cuisine's placement within the kitchen can vary depending on the individual restaurants hierarchy setup. Generally, it is either equivalent to an Executive Chef position, or a position equivalent to a Sous Chef, under the command of an Executive Sous Chef.
The sous chef (pronounced "soo-shef" French for "under chef") is the direct assistant of the Executive Chef. The Sous Chef often shares some duties with the executive chef, such as menu planning, costing and ordering. Larger kitchens often have more than one sous chef, with each covering a certain shift or having his or her own area of responsibility, such as the banquet sous chef, in charge of all banquets, or the executive sous chef, in charge of all other sous chefs.
Generally done by the sous chef, the expediter serves as the liaison between the customers in the dining room and the line cooks. With the help of proper coordination and timing, they make sure that the food gets to the wait staff in a timely fashion, so that everyone sitting at a particular table is served simultaneously.
A chef de partie, also known as a "station chef" or "line cook", is in charge of a particular area of production. In large kitchens, each station chef might have several cooks and/or assistants. In most kitchens however, the station chef is the only worker in that department. Line cooks are often divided into a hierarchy of their own, starting with "First Cook", then "Second Cook", and so on as needed.
In larger kitchens, each station chef would have cooks and assistants (commis) that help with the particular duties that are assigned to that area. With experience, assistants may be promoted to station cooks and then to station chefs.
A valet or gentleman's gentleman is a gentleman's male servant. The valet performs personal services such as maintaining his employer's clothes, running his bath and perhaps (especially in the past) shaving his employer. In a great house the master of the house had his own valet, in the grandest the same would go for other adult members of the employing family (e.g. master's sons), at a court even minor princes and high officials may be assigned one, but in a smaller household the butler (the majordomo in charge of the household staff) might have to double as his employer's valet. In a bachelor's household the valet might perform light housekeeping duties as well. Valets, like butlers and most specialized domestic staff, have become relatively rare, and a more common, though still infrequent, arrangement is the general servant performing combined roles.
Traditionally, valets did much more than merely lay out clothes and take care of personal items. He was also responsible for making travel arrangements, dealing with any bills and handling all money matters concerning his master or his master's household.