Front Office, 2nd Edition

Chapter 8

Marketing aspects

Introduction

We have seen that front office can do more than is sometimes thought in terms of raising room revenue. However, attracting new customers is properly the concern of the sales and marketing department. Much of its work lies outside the scope of this book, partly because it concerns the hotel as a whole (including its banqueting and other facilities), and partly because marketing itself is a much broader concept than ‘selling’.

According to the British Institute of Marketing, it is ‘the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably’. This covers many activities which do not form part of the day-to-day work of front office, such as consumer orientation, ...