Hospitality Operations: Accommodation and Food & Beverage
Accommodation operations
Learn the rooms division: front office (reservations, check-in, concierge, cashiering), housekeeping (cleaning, linen, laundry, maintenance reporting) and security. Know room types (single, double, twin, suite, connecting), rate structures (rack rate, corporate rate, group rate, seasonal rate), and key performance measures: occupancy percentage, average daily rate (ADR) and revenue per available room (RevPAR). Understand the guest cycle: pre-arrival, arrival, occupancy, departure, and post-departure.
Food and beverage operations
Distinguish commercial from welfare catering, and table service from counter, buffet, banquet and room service. Know the brigade de cuisine roles (executive chef, sous chef, chef de partie, commis) and front-of-house roles (restaurant manager, maître d', waiter, sommelier). Understand the flow of food through purchasing, receiving, storage, preparation, service and waste control.
Controls and documents
Be able to read a menu costing: food cost percentage = food cost ÷ selling price × 100. Understand stock rotation (FIFO), portion control, requisitions, and the difference between a bill and a folio.
Traps in questions
- Calculating RevPAR incorrectly: RevPAR = ADR × occupancy, or total room revenue ÷ rooms available.
- Confusing occupancy with yield; yield accounts for rate achieved.
- Mixing back-of-house and front-of-house roles.
Rule of thumb
For any costing question, work in percentages of selling price. Worked example: a dish costs P12 to make and sells for P40. Food cost percentage = 12 ÷ 40 × 100 = 30%. If the target is 25%, the minimum selling price is 12 ÷ 0.25 = P48.