The Symbiotic Hotel Ecosystem

In my first year of college, studying hotel management, I read Arthur Hailey’s “Hotel” -- a fictional story set in a five star hotel. It navigated through the various departments of the hotel, uncovering the challenges and idiosyncrasies of its operations through the eyes of various characters within the hotel ecosystem. It was so exciting to read, and even more exciting to recall, as I began interning at ITC Windsor myself!

However, something that I didn’t really get a sense of through the novel, but did see as I worked at the hotel, was the bigger picture. 

As I navigated as a trainee, from one department to the next, slowly the pieces began to join themselves together. The seemingly independent departments of the hotel - the kitchen, the front office, the housekeeping, the restaurants, the engineering, the executive offices of Sales, HR and Training – I slowly began to see how they’re all working in a sort of independent synchronization, as part of a larger machine that hums and puffs as it performs the daily task of guest satisfaction.

On an average day in the hotel…

The captain of the restaurant calls up front desk to find out the occupancy percentage and number of room guests on that day. He will be briefing his team at the restaurant about this soon, so they are prepared to provide the best service.

Soon, during the breakfast buffet, chefs bustle in and out of the restaurant, to check on guests. They zoom to the business centre in the lobby to meet the calligrapher, who hand writes the dish tags for the special Sunday Brunch.

The calligrapher then goes on to write key dockets with guest names, which will be sent to the front desk.

The front desk frantically calls up head of housekeeping  -- “VIP guest is on his way from the airport, is room number 2511 ready for check in?”

The houseman on the floor heads to 2511, on noticing that the welcome confectioneries are not yet placed, calls the Room Service to place the cookies and pastry for the soon arriving guest.

Room service calls the bakery – “Chef, I need the room amenities, check-in in 30 minutes!”

The chef is more worried about his banquet party of 200 guests that evening, in the Regency hall. Down in the Regency hall, the banquet captains direct the stewards as they transform a large empty room into a grand dinner hall for the evening. The florist arranges flowers on each table.

Back in Room 2511, the houseman calls the laundry – “please send me 50 face towels, some bedsheets and underliners, or I cannot service these rooms”.

Down at the laundry, guest laundry slips are being sorted – one copy to keep, one to return to the guest and a third to send to finance, to generate the guest’s final bill. The slips are sent off to the finance office. Shortly afterwards, the auditor from finance strides through the lobby to the back office of the business center, to collect the registration cards of the previous day’s check-ins. These must be tallied against the billing details received from the reception to ensure there are no fraudulent transactions made by guests. He checks at reception for any missing cards from the bundle.

Behind the reception, the reservations manager sits in his office and emails the security, informing them not to frisk a certain VIP guest who is expected tomorrow, as he is a regular guest of high stature.

Meanwhile, near the back gate, the head of security gathers all the department heads, along with several employees and trainees, as they conduct a fire drill.

Through it all, the engineers buzz in and out of all parts of the hotel, like busy and efficient worker ants, fixing all things that are broken and bent.

---

In the hotel, all the departments work together. Everyone knows everyone. Everyone smiles or nods, or asks, “how’s it going?”

They exchange quick comments in the hallways about,  “112% occupancy tomorrow!! It’s going to be busy!” or “the IPL Crew is checking out this week, things are going to calm down a bit then, phew!”

Everyone is friends or enemies or frenemies, but there are few strangers within the complex framework of the hotel.

In two months as an intern I have made friends and acquaintances with people from all departments! Even ones I didn’t work in. And what I’ll miss the most about working at ITC Windsor are the people I met, crossed paths with, and learnt so, so much from.