Unit 4 Hotel Services and Facilities
Text 1
Pre-reading
In your opinion, what is the difference between hotel facilities and services?
Make lists of hotel facilities and services you have already known.
Look-through-the text activity
Find definitions of hotel facilities and services given in the text.
Add other hotel services and facilities mentioned in the text to your lists.
Hotels offer various types of lodging accommodations to travelers, whether for a few nights, for extended stays, or for resorts where guests stay specifically to enjoy certain facilities such as golf courses and live entertainment. A system for rating hotels according to the range of facilities and quality of service is widely used in the world. Limited-service hotels generally provide rooms and daily housekeeping services, while larger hotels typically offer additional amenities such as room and valet service.
Here is some brief definition of hotel facilities and services.
Hotel facilities are features provided for the comfort and convenience of guests, like a gym, swimming pool, or beauty salon. Most hotels also have catering facilities where food and drink are provided, such as a restaurant (serving meals), or bar (serving mainly drinks).
Hotel services are similar to facilities, but are provided by people. If you want to have your clothes washed, you can ask for the laundry service, and if you would like your children looked after while you are out, you can use the babysitting service. The hotel might also offer a shuttle service to take guests to and from the airport.
Levels of service
World Class Service: - These are also called luxury hotels or full service hotels. They target top business executives, entertainment celebrities, high- ranking political figures, and wealthy clientele as their primary markets. They provide upscale restaurants and lounges, concierge services to help guests with special requests such as event tickets, restaurant reservations, local tips and babysitting services, and also private dining facilities. Guestrooms are oversized, heated and have plush bath towels, large soap bars, shampoo, shower caps and all amenities. Housekeeping services are given two times a day. Above all luxury hotels give personalized service to the guest and have a relatively high ratio of staff members to guests.
Mid-Range Service: - Hotels, offering mid-range service, appeal to the largest segment of the travelling public. This kind of hotels does not provide elaborate service and have an adequate staffing. They also provide uniformed service, food and beverage room service, in room entertainment and also Wi-Fi. Property may offer a specialty restaurant, coffee shop and lounge that cater to visitors as well as hotel guests. Types of guests who like to stay at these hotels are business people, individual travelers and families. Rates are lower than in luxury hotels as they provide fewer services, smaller rooms and a smaller range of facilities and recreational activities.
Economy / Limited Service: These hotels provide clean, comfortable, safe, inexpensive rooms and meet the basic needs of guests. Economy hotels appeal primarily to budget minded travelers, who want a room with minimum services and amenities required for comfortable stay, without unnecessary paying additional cost for costly services. The clientele of these hotels includes families with children, travelling business people, backpackers, vacationers etc. These types of hotels might not offer food and beverage facilities.
After-reading
1. What kind of clientele do full service hotels market to? What special services do these hotels provide to their guests?
2. Why are mid-range service hotels cheaper than luxury hotels?
3. What kind of travelers stays in economy hotels? Why?
4. What is the difference between hotel facilities and services?
Task 1. Vocabulary
1.1 Find words and phrases in the text with the following meanings:extra, expensive, short, customers, parlour, beverages, main, booking, twice, first class, proportion, relevant, take care of, prices, cheap, holidaymakers, market to, satisfy.
1.2 Match the following words given in the text with their definitions:
| 1.Backpacker | a. someone in a hotel whose job is to help guests by telling them about places to visit, restaurants to eat in etc. |
| 2. Vacationer | b. carefully planned and organized in great detail |
| 3. Costly | c. enough in quantity or of a good enough quality for a particular purpose |
| 4.Appeal to | d. proportion of something to something |
| 5. Elaborate | e. someone who has gone somewhere for a holiday= holidaymaker BrE |
| 6. Adequate | f. a type of food that a restaurant is well known for |
| 7. Target | g. someone who is travelling for pleasure, usually with not very much money, and who walks or uses public transport and carries a rucksack |
| 8. Concierge | h. very expensive, especially wasting a lot of money |
| 9. Ratio | i. something that seems attractive and interesting to someone |
| 10. Speciality | j. to make something have an effect on a particular limited group or area |