Individual hotels are usually organized along functional lines, with departments grouped according to the particular work activity in which they are engaged. The hotel is divided along functional lines into five administrative departments: rooms, food and beverage, accounting, sales, and personnel. The five department heads report directly to the GM. Each department is subdivided into smaller organizational units. These subdivisions represent refinements of the work performed and the knowledge and skills of the people in each subunit.
The Rooms Department. The rooms department performs the lodging function of a hotel. Reservations must be accepted, guests must be hospitably received and assigned clean rooms, the status of available and occupied rooms must be kept current, guests must receive mail and phone messages promptly, security must be maintained, public spaces such as lobbies must be kept clean, and guest questions must be answered.
The Food and Beverage Department. The primary function of the food and beverage department is, of course, to provide food and drink to a hotel's guests. In earlier times, when an inn had only one dining room, this was a much simpler task. Today, however, providing food and drink is much more complicated. The 500-room hotel in this discussion might well have a coffee shop, a gourmet restaurant, a poolside snack bar. room service, two banquet halls, and ten separate function rooms where food and beverage may be served. It might also have a piano bar and lounge, a nightclub, and a lobby bar.
Sales and Marketing. This department is quite small, making intradepartmental coordination fairly easy. Also, the department is removed from most day-to-day operational problems faced by other departments. Still, there is a division of work among sales managers, usually based on the type of customers a hotel is attempting to attract. Individual sales managers often specialize in corporate accounts, conventions,