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BRIEF HISTORY OF LODGING INDUSTRY

HFT 2254 LODGING OPERATIONS


Lodging is one of the most exciting and rapidly changing segments of the hospitality industry. Given the
interest in lodging and its rapid growth (especially in the limited-service hotel segment), this course is
intended to provide students with a basic framework and structure for understanding the inner workings of
this vitally important component of the larger travel industry.
Hoteliers operate hotels...and today's hoteliers face challenges unmatched in recent history. Changing
consumer demands, the advent of the Internet as a major force in selling rooms, advanced operational
technology at the front desk and in sales, and even the threat of global terrorism all have an impact on the
day-to-day activities of those who work in and manage hotels.
To understand the lodging industry we will first look at a brief history of the industry as well as its structure
in Chapters 1 and 2.
Because hotels also provide many services in addition to sleeping rooms, we will cover this topic in
Chapter 3, followed by a discussion of management's role in Chapter 4, and the roles of supervisors and
hourly staff in Chapter 5.
In the remaining chapters, we will then discuss the various functions and/or departments found within
hotels, beginning with Human Resources, followed by the Front Office, Sales and marketing, Accounting
and Finance, Housekeeping, and Maintenance and Security.
In Chapters 12 and 13 we will focus on Food and Beverage Departments in limited-service versus full-
service hotels and their unique role in a lodging facility.

FUNCTION OF HOUSEKEEPING
As mentioned previously, outsourcing certain hotel functions are becoming more and more popular because
of the cost-cutting aim of hotels.

One function which could be considered as commonly outsourced would be housekeeping. How does
outsourcing helps? Here are some of the advantages mentioned when outsourcing:

-allows housekeepers to concentrate on the core competencies of their job like delivering a well-kept house
and keeping the areas maintained
-allows flexibility of operations in terms of utilizing and rotating the manpower
-offers specialized and expert guidance for the maintenance of different areas.
-reduce staff problems in recruitment, training, allocation, appraisals, increments, and dismissals.

These advantages would only work if hotels have proof that outsourcing would work for them and if they
are also able to draw an outsourcing contract which they approve of.

5 TRIVIA IN HOUSEKEEPING
Vacuum Cleaner
In 1907, James Murray Spangler, a janitor, tinkered with an old fan motor and attached it
to a soap box
stapled to a broom handle. Using a pillow case as a dust collector on the contraption,
Spangler invented a
portable electric vacuum cleaner. He later improved his design with an improved filter
bag and various cleaning
attachments. He, along with a relative's husband, William Hoover, founded the Hoover
Company.
SOS Pads
Invented by a door-to-door salesman (Edwin Cox) in 1917 as a gimmick to get people
interested in his pots and pans.
He repeatedly hand dipped steel wool pads into a soapy solution until they became
saturated with dried soap. When
he began offering to clean people's dirty pans if they would listed to his presentation,
sales increased. His wife came
up with the name for the pads by calling them her "Save Our Sausepans Pads".

Powdered Cleansers
Bon Ami, invented in 1886, was the first powdered cleanser. It was found that by adding
nondissolving substances to
powdered soap created a more powerful cleanser. Early abrasives used in this process
were sand, chalk, pumice and
even ground up quartz and petrified wood.

Facial Tissue
In 1914, Kimberly-Clark Co. produced a highly absorbent surgical dressing called
Cellucotton that was also used in
gas mask filters during the war. At war's end, there was such a surplus of the product, that
Kimberly-Clark managers
had to find a peacetime use for it. It was packaged and marketed as a cold-cream removal
product. The marketing
campaign used Hollywood and Broadway stars to promote its use.

Bleach
Egyptians, around 3000 BC, produced highly prized white linen from naturally brown
fabric by soaking the cloth in harsh
alkaline lyes. Dutch dyers, around 1600, soaked fabric in alkaline lyes for several days.
They halted the deterioration of the
fabric by soaking it in sour milk (an acid). This process was repeated several times until
the fabric reached the desired
whiteness.Swedish scientist Karl Wilhelm Scheel discovered chlorine gas in 1774. In
1785, Count Claude Louis Berthollet,
who was scientific advisor to Napoleon, discovered that chlorine gas, when passed
through water, created liquid bleach.

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