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How can we convert our hostel to a system that will allow us to close our reception desk at night?

Front Desk Operations

ComeToPanama started this discussion 10 years 11 months ago

We are a small hostel located in a big city where there are options for our guests to stay out all night and arrive from other places all night long.
For all these years we have maintained our reception desk open 24 hours.

There are certain times of the year that we feel that it is not necessary to stay open all night, just waiting for the possibility of someone showing up late (and many nights, no one shows up at all!)

Are there any suggestions that you can make to help us figure out how we can close our reception desk at about 11pm and open again at about 7am? How could we insure security? Do we give existing guests keys and trust that they will lock up? How can we insure that the guests won't have crazy out of control parties and keep other guests awake? For new guests arriving, do we simply refuse late check-ins, how does that work? Can they check themselves in?

We are completely confused about how to handle this, and frankly we aren;t even sure that it can be done. All help appreciated!

Thanks!

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slushysnow

10 years

Hi ComeToPanama,

I don't know if this would work for you but this is what we do every night:

At 5pm the day manager finishes and hands over to a night supervisor

The night supervisor is responsible until 8am the next day.

The night supervisor has to stay in the office until about 9-10pm. They can then close the office, taking our phone with them. Our phone is linked to a buzzer outside and also one at the front desk.

At 10:30pm they close and clean the kitchen and outdoor courtyards.

From this point on they are free to go to bed, BUT they take the phone with them (we have 24 hour check-in).

When guests want to check in they ring the buzzer outside and the night supervisor's phone rings and they come down and check them in.

We're not a party place so this works for us, whether it would work for you I don't know. Because the night supervisors are up and down throughout the night they can keep an eye on the place and our guests know to ring the buzzer if there are any problems.

Works for us!

I know some hostels have pretty neat self check-in systems though so might be worth checking out for you guys.

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HostelOffice

10 years

We have two small hostels that do not have enough guests to justify all night staff so we use a combination of three things:

1. A policy of not being a party hostel and evictions for anyone misbehaving.

2. A front door bell with remote opening so that the door calls a phone and the door can be opened from that phone by depressing the number 5.

3. Electronic locks and safes to hold pre cut electronic keys.

These three things work so well that staff do not have to be at the hostel all day or all night.

We have an extra six button door bell phone in the hostel so the guests can press to call for Pizza, Kebab, police, fire, taxi, or staff. Late arriving guests are told via the door bell or earlier via email the code for the safe so they can open it to collect their electronic key for the security door and their room door.

But we also do have a live in person at the hostel that would wake up if there were going to be a massive problem at the hostel like the fire alarm going off.

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slushysnow

10 years

Haha I like the idea of a pizza/kebab button!

Do you ever get anyone misusing the emergency services ones though?

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HostelOffice

10 years

In a larger hostel I think for sure the buttons would be abused. But each of our hostels have 22 beds so it seems to prevent the abuse. Then of course the only reason we have these buttons is because we have a small hostel. No need to use them in a larger hostel always staffed. If we had problems I think to deter abuse of the buttons we would put a camera and a screen near the buttons so the guest can see they are being recorded.

The emergency services also do not speak english as a first language, if at all, and as most of our guests speak english and not the local language then it would take a serious effort from the guest to be taken seriously by the emergency services. Those that can speak the local language I do not think want a police investigation against them. This is called the "Culture Filter":-)

If there were a serious fire then the faster way to get the fire brigade to the hostel would be to smash the glass and push the emergency button. If guests wanted to cause havoc then a faster way would be to pick up the portable fire extinguishers and spray each other with them as they spray out powder.

We can also run audits of door locks to see the time they were opened and by who. So if other guests say they heard noise around 3am then we can see who was opening their room door at 3am and evict them or charge them or inform the police. So the solution is more than one thing alone.

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zomac

10 years

For a small one, maybe it's easier to hire one or two volunteers whose duty is to sleep in the common area for the whole night.

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