[172] English for Hotel Receptionists (Hospitality & Tourism Industry)

Learn English for Hotel Receptionists

 

 

Today’s episode is for people who work in the Travel & Tourism industry and for those who travel for pleasure aka tourists! The majority of vocabulary will be about what happens when you arrive at the hotel. Tune in and enjoy the ride! :)

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Transcript

For the next couple of episodes we will be talking about Travel & Tourism. Today’s topic is for people who work in the Travel industry. Enjoy :)

Welcome amigos y amigas, you are listening to the English Made Simple podcast, this is episode number 172, number one hundred and seventy-two, numero ciento setenta y dos.

My name is Milena, your super host of the English Made Simple podcast, thanks for tuning in, and thanks for pushing the Play button and listening to me blab. You will hear me blab every Monday, every week.

Ok, so today’s topic is quite interesting. I haven’t done anything like this before. We are going to talk about Travel and Tourism.

Let me touch on Tourism first.

I bet that the majority of you have been tourists at some stage in your lives – you’ve visited other countries, you’ve travelled overseas, and if you haven’t travelled overseas at all than you were a local tourists once, you must have visited different cities in your country of residence.

What is a tourist?

A person who likes to explore new surroundings, a person who travels for pleasure is called a TOURIST.

This one is basic. What else can you call a tourist? I will share some synonyms with you.
This will help you expand your vocabulary.

So let’s see, some people call tourists ‘holidaymakers’ – that’s all 1 word… also, ‘traveller’ (a time traveller haha), (in the US it is spelled as Traveler, in the UK it’s Traveller), sightseer, backpacker – ok these are special kind of tourists. Backpackers travel on a budget. They don’t spend money on luxury accommodation, but they will happily spend money on booze.

Ok, so there you have it, some new words for you.

I’ve decided to do an episode for someone who is in Hotel business – I have one listener who owns a Bed and Breakfast place, his name is Antonio or Tony Matt he recently emailed me to tell me that he is learning English because he wants to be able to develop a good relationship with his customers in English. That’s a very good reason for learning English.

So when I say the word Accommodation? What comes to your mind? What’s your favourite type of accommodation? Do you have a preference?

Let me list you some types of accommodations:

Hotel? Motel? Backpacker’s place? A Lodge? An Inn? Air BnB? Bed & Breakfast, Camping, Resorts? And the list goes on. Or maybe you like to do House Swaps? House swapping is when you exchange your house with someone else’s house for a certain period of time. Like for example, I can give you my apartment for 2 months in exchange for your house or apartment for 2 months. I’ve have never done this but I kind of like the idea.

Ok so when I was younger, I wouldn’t mind going to the Backpackers, but now that I am more…. Should we say… more mature … I prefer staying in Hotels or Bed & Breakfast places. There’s Air BnB too, but it’s very expensive here in Australia to stay at an AirBnB place. So I don’t go for AirBnB in Australia, it’s too pricey.

Ok so this episode will benefit you if you are a tourist or you work in the hospitality industry.

Regardless of where you happen to work, maybe you work at a hotel, or a BnB place … Well, you need to learn how to:

Welcome your guests, how to check them in, check them out of the place and even be able to give instructions. If you wanted to recommend some activities for them to do (how do you do that?), or suggests some sights or tourist attractions for them to see. You’d also want to be able to answer questions from tourists about your local area.

I don’t think I will have time to talk through all of these points. I will just go through them briefly.

The First things first: Welcome your guests.

This is common sense, if you work in Customer Service then you should know what to do… always smile and make your guests feel welcomed.

The next thing you should say is: How can I help you? How can I help you today?

This is a good question to know: You can ask this question at any stage throughout the visitor’s stay.

Let’s imagine a tourist comes to your desk, your reception desk and says Hi, I need a room please. What do you do?

You would normally ask the obvious:

Do you have a reservation?

What name is your reservation under?

If there is no reservation, then you would have to look for any available rooms.
I don’t know about you, but I prefer to book my accommodation ahead of my journey. I don’t like surprises so I don’t want to spend half a day looking for a place to sleep. I am not that adventurous.

The reservation means: a booking.
The verb to Book means to make an appointment.

It’s spelled the same as when you read a BOOK. But this is a noun and has a different meaning.
It’s often used as a verb, to book means to make an appointment.

What I like to do when I travel is book online (on the Internet) for a place to stay. I always use the Internet to make bookings for accommodation when travelling.

The next thing you would do is take the payment. How will the person pay for the accommodation? In most cases you also need to show your ID. This is short for Identification. So you should always carry it with you.

Can I have your credit card and ID please?

You normally pay after your stay, but sometimes the hotel owners take an impression of your credit card in case you do the runner. It’s kind of their security. Just in case you run away without paying. Which is not nice, not nice at all.

Towards the end of the initial communication with the concierge – the person who is behind the reception desk is called a concierge. Also known as a hotel receptionist – So the receptionist will ask you:

Is there anything else I can help you with?

Here is the key to your room, it’s on 7th floor, room number 723

Please know that breakfast is served from 6am to 9am, every morning in the dining area. Or in the kitchen area.

Enjoy your stay, Mr Jones.

Did you notice how when we talk about floors we say: 1st Floor, 2nd Floor, 3rd Floor, 4th Floor, 5th Floor and so on. We don’t say, Floor number 1, floor number 2 – we use sequential numbers or ordinal numbers. Ordinal numbers suggest an order in a list.

Cool bananas? Is that clear as mud? I hope today’s episode was useful to you. If you know of anyone who works in the hospitality & tourism industry please forward this episode to them. I am sure they will appreciate it.

As always, transcripts are available on my website, Englishmadesimple.net/podcast.

Thank you for listening to yet another awesome episode of the English Made Simple show, you’ve been an amazing audience, and you’ve been jamming with Milena from English Made Simple. Have a great rest of the week. Until next time. Hasta la proxima!