Review of Stamford Grand Adelaide Hotel

Stamford Grand Adelaide Resort and Hotel at Glenelg is one of the luxurious Stamford chain hotels and resorts. The hotel is located on the beachfront. Just like any other Stamford hotel, it specializes in accommodation, beverage, hospitality and delicious food. The hotel is one of Australia’s leading luxury hotel with a history of providing excellent services and products. The hotel operates food, beverage, catering, bar, and spa. It also provides various packages ranging from family gateways, spa, weddings, and stay dine and drive among others that change depending on with seasons. The unique location of the hotel is second to none in the Adelaide market.

Property Management System (PMS)

Stamford Grand hotel uses Opera property management system. The system has enabled Stamford to deliver world-class personalized guest service as they increase operational efficiency across the property. The hotel PMS manages front office work such as booking, reservations, check-ins and check-outs, assignment of rooms and room rates management. Besides, it integrates food and beverage operations, housekeeping and maintenance management, sales and catering executions, revenue management, distribution across the channel as well as spa management. The Opera PMS has extended the traditional front desk capabilities by integrating all the critical business operations in order to deliver a seamless guest experience. Well, the Opera PMS is one of the best PMSs in the hospitality industry. It has yielded numerous benefits to the hotel through its features, including:

Enhanced check-in and check out capabilities. The Opera PMS is cloud-based. That means that it is mobile enabled and provides anytime and anywhere services to guests. By the fact that employees are connected all the time, their productivity has increased. Grand Adelaide has also experienced less IT costs and expenditure on software and hardware as a result.

Instant updates on housekeeping. That has enabled the hotel to identify and manage room maintenance needs, cleaning them up and ensure they are in perfect condition.  Also, systems have improved the response time for room service tasks. When customers check out, it is automatically updated on mobile devices and rooms can be cleaned.

Integrated hotel back office systems. Financial processes have been synergized through pre-built integrations to the payment gateways, accounts receivables and payables, commission handling and property infrastructure devices. This ensures guest folios are accurately maintained for faster and accurate billing.

Effective hotel distribution management. The PMS boosts sales by providing direct booking channels on the brand website. Real-time rate management across distribution channels have increased the average daily rates (ADR) and room occupancy.

Improved hotel revenue management. Advanced rate management features which provide manual and semi-automatic revenue management help managers improve ADR with extensive options.

Better managed customer data. The PMS centralizes customer data and has ensured the accuracy of guest profiles. The information has been important in understanding customer buying patterns which led to the hotel introducing more targeted packages and services. The system ensures the security of customer data in a manner that complies with the national and international data compliance rules.

Hospitality Products and Services Offered

In the hotel

The hotel provides various amenities that include 220 smoke-free guestrooms arranged over twelve floors. It has two restaurants (that serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner) and two bars/lounges. The fact that it is located on the Glenelg beach makes it attractive to many beach lovers. The valet parking allows tired guests to rest immediately after they arrive at the hotel. By the fact that it is the staff that does the parking, customers are at peace with safe parking of their cars. Other optional extras exist for self-parking, extended parking with in and out privileges at a fee (Stamford, 2018).

The 24-hour front desk ensures customers are never stranded and well served. For clubbers, the nightclub is something to look out for. The lobby area has Wi-Fi with high-speed connectivity. All the other public areas and guest rooms also have Wi-Fi but at a fee.

Concierge services are offered with utmost concern. As such, those in charge of the services assist clients in making reservations, arranging for spa services, recommending desired hot spots, booking transportation, assisting in travel arrangements, procuring tickets on behalf of clients to special events, sending and receiving parcels, and coordinating porter services on request. The hotel also stores luggage for the guest.

The porters are always standby at the hotel entrance to assist guests to carry luggage. Other responsibilities include showing guests their rooms, looking after keys and running errands such as picking up dry cleaned linen. The hotel offers laundry and dry cleaning services. In addition, language barrier aspects are handled by the multilingual staff. Even if one cannot speak English or native Australian languages, there is someone at the hotel who can converse with them.

When working away, Grand Adelaide has a business centre made up of meeting rooms with ample conference space.

In the room

The hotel rooms provide home comforts in terms of bathrobes and slippers. Also, there are ironing boards and coffee and tea makers. Good ventilation and air conditioning ensure the rooms are fresh all the time. Every room has a mini bar where guests can purchase drinks and snacks during the stay. In fact, those at Stamford use infrared; purchases are automatically recorded immediately an item is removed and charged from a guest’s credit card right away. The measure has helped the firm prevent loss of revenue through theft or misuse. There is also a fridge where one can put food and drinks.

Hypo-allergenic bedding ensures everyone sleeps well. The beddings are premium for the luxurious comfort. The rooms have blackout drapes and curtains for privacy purposes. Importantly, the hotel offers in-room massage at a subsidized charge. That is something to enjoy at Stamford. In terms of freshening up, there are private bathrooms with showers and tubs, free toiletries and a hairdryer.

Concerning entertainment, the hotel offers premium TV channels or one can pay for a film they would love to watch. In-room safes ensure the safety of guests’ valuable items. The fact that they are laptop-compatible makes them more user-friendly.

Workers provide daily housekeeping, in-room dining, and 24-hour room service. The rooms can be adjoined in case of vacation with children, connecting rooms as those at Stamford Grand Adelaide. Rollaway beds are also offered at request.

For recreation on site, there are fitness facilities, sauna, spa tub and personal motorized watercraft. The hotel also has an outdoor pool. Nearby, there are ecotours, bicycle rentals, golfing, kayaking, mountain biking, scooters, skydiving, parasailing, windsurfing and boogie boarding recreational activities that make the stay at the hotel fun, relaxing and memorable.

Interrelated Departments

The departments that are closely interrelated at Stamford Grand Adelaide Resort are the front office and the housekeeping departments. Coordination between the two departments is crucial for smooth operations and for the successful service delivery to guests.

The procedures include the arrivals and the departures.

In advance, the front office provides lists of expected arrivals and departures for the day. They also update the housekeeping of actual arrivals and departures as they occur. The front office produces occupancy reports which show the next day’s check out expectations. Housekeeping thereafter schedules cleaning and servicing of the respective rooms. Importantly, the front office cannot assign guestrooms until the housekeeping confirms that they are clean, inspected and ready for occupation.

What the procedures achieve

Coordination between housekeeping and the front office ensures the job is done at the right time. Besides, it is wrong to keep a guest wait at the lobby simply because their room is not yet clean and due to housekeeping not communicating in real time on the status of the room. The procedures also eliminate miscommunications in regard to wrong assignments of guestrooms. Likewise, room status changes like out of order and under repair communication between the two dockets is essential for proper room management. Prompt information to the front office of the room status greatly aids in registering guests as they arrive especially during sold-out or high occupancy periods. Moreover, Collaboration ensures special attention is accorded in terms of room preparation for VIPs, groups, the crew in the house and flower arrangement for distinguished guests.

Interrelationship between the two departments

a) Cleaning and inspection process

The two departments ensure there are always clean rooms for expected guest arrivals and stay overs. The cleaning procedures are that new arrival rooms are given priority, then the stayover rooms and lastly the vacant rooms are handled. That ensures that room maids use their valuable time in cleaning and not going back and forth in corridors. The Opera PMS ensures there is an automated flow of communication between the front office and the housekeeping. Once cleaning is complete, inspection is done and a coded message is sent from the housekeeping department to check-in personnel in confirmation of up to standard cleaning and readiness of a next arrival.

b) Room status report

The management of Stamford Grand hotel requires that a room status report is given every time a guest checks out. So, through the PMS, the two departments deliver recent room status reports for every room in the hotel. Discrepancies are reconciled during the night shift by a night auditor (Stamford, 2018).

c) Room guest needs satisfaction

During reservations and registration, guests may request certain specific needs in terms of amenities and facilities. It is the duty of the front office to communicate it directly to the housekeeping who have to actualize customer demands. The former thus follows up to ensure the provision is timely and accurate.

Reference

Stamford, 2018. Glenelg accomodation. [Online]

Available at: https://www.stamford.com.au/sga/glenelg-hotel-accommodation/

[Accessed 26 Aug 2018].