Emergency and Contingency Plan

Askar DG KAMIS
Dec 21, 2025
8 min read

Objective ：

To ensure that the hotel and all staff are adequately prepared for any emergencies that may arise.

Procedure ：

In the event of a computer stoppage, the hotel will continue to function on a manual basis until the computer system is restored.

Front Desk

The Front Office Duty Manager will carry out the following task:

Advise the following key personnel immediately:
1. IT Manager / IT Co-coordinator on Duty
2. General Manager
3. Director of Finance
4. Rooms Division Manager
5. Front Office Manager
6. Executive Housekeeper
7. Manager on Duty
8. Service Centre Staff
9. Outlet Cashiers

Supervise and manually update the last print-out of the following contingency reports to be produced from the latest back-up disk before the breakdown:
1. Registered Guests (By Name)
2. Registered Guests (By Room Number)
3. Arrival Report
4. Departure Report
5. Folios for departing guests
6. Guest Ledger Trial Balance, Folio Short Form.
7. Room Lists (for all rooms)
8. Billing by Manual Type, what arrange previously(when system normal)

Update the Registered Guests reports by obtaining information from the Arrival Report for guests who have check–in after the last printout and from the Front Desk staff for the guests who have checkout after the last printout.

Update the Room List report through telephone communication with Housekeeping Department and feedback from Front Desk staff.

Assign one Front Desk staff to inform concerned departments / sections about guests’ checkout so that no more charges to the guest folio.

Ensure that having checked-out each guest, the front desk staff will put a “VD” remark in the Room List report and inform Housekeeping Department to clean the room. When the room is ready for sale, the Housekeeping Department will report to Front Desk who will change the room status to “VR”. The Front Desk staff will mark off the Room List and update the Registered Guests reports whenever a room is sold.

Ensure that the Arrival Report is updated manually at all times by inserting the room numbers next to the name of the guest and this report is to be kept in the Front Desk for input into the computer system when the system is back in operation.

Assign one Front Desk staff to sort out all the guest checks by floor for that day. The guest folio balance up to the room charges for the preceding day can be obtained from the Guest Ledger Trial Balance report. All F&B cashiers must firstly inform the Front Desk staff and then forward the signed restaurant’s checks to the Front Desk staff as soon as possible. The Front Desk staff will manually add the charges for that day (including all charges which were automatically posted during normal operations) to the balance carried forward amount in the folio so that it could be presented to the guest for payment when the need arises.

Ensure that the Front Desk staff keeps the balance brought forward folio and guest checks for posting to the computer when the system is back in operations.

Ensure that the Front Desk staff politely explains to guests about the existing computer problem and informing the guests that copies of the folio will be mailed to them immediately when the computer resumes operations.

Reservation and Sales Departments

The Reservation and Sales Departments staff will take reservations as per normal through the telephone. The staffs are to be aware of the blackout dates to avoid overbooking. Input the bookings into the computer when the system resumes operations.

Ensure to perform the Reservation Centre update when the system resumes operations.
All the same day’s new reservations including amendments and cancellations which are received during the computer breakdown should be forwarded to the Front Desk as soon as they are confirmed.

Housekeeping Department

Housekeeping staff will update manually the Room List, which is kept by them as a source document during normal operations.

Housekeeping staff to report by telephone all clean and vacant rooms to the Front Desk to update the Room List report kept by the Front Desk.

Forward all Mini Bar Voucher and Guest Landry Voucher to Front Desk. Front Desk staff will calculate the amount and put vouchers into guest folio by guest room number.

Service Centre

The last print-out of the following reports must be updated manually:
Registered Guests (by Name)
Registered Guests (by Room Number)

The Service Centre staff can obtain information from both reports updated by Front Desk.

Whenever chargeable calls are made from guestrooms, Service Centre staff should immediately prepare the Miscellaneous Charge Voucher and pass them to the Front Desk for updating the Guest Folio.

IT Department

The IT Manager and his assistants must report immediately to the Hotel and take command of the computer system.
In the event that it is a hardware breakdown, the IT Manager will report to the vendor and request immediate dispatch of a Customer Engineer to rectify the problem.
In the event that it is a software breakdown, IT manager should immediately contact support engineer, describe the problem to support engineer, request to solve the problem through telephone or remote control.
IT manager should communication all relative department through telephone, report the processing to Director of Finance. If system restore, check all systems and interfaces to ensure system resumes operations, and inform all department to stop manually process.
All IT staff must stay in the Hotel until the system is up and in operation again
All system support contact list must be placed on the visible position, IT staff can report to support engineer immediately by this list.

Manager on Duty and Front Office Duty Manager

Should always be on standby at the front desk and lobby and to extend help whenever called for.

Emergency Plan for Credit Card
Front Desk and Front Desk should have sufficient stock of various kinds of credit card charge vouchers and credit card imprinters. Telephone number list for the credit card centers must always be kept in each counter. Arrange sufficient staff to work in the counters for manual operations in the event of a computer breakdown. All cashiers are to be trained on manual credit card settlement procedures.

Front Office
1. Imprint credit card voucher upon guest check-in,
2. Call the authorization centre for approval code and mark it down on the credit card voucher.
3. Upon guest checkout, write down the total amount onto the credit card voucher that is imprinted upon guest check-in.
4. Ask for guest signature and verify the signature against the one credit card.
5. Return the credit card and the customer copy of the charge voucher together with the 1^st copy of the guest check to guest.
6. Front Desk to send the other copies of the credit card voucher to Finance for further processing.
7. Send all transactions including payments provided also by completely back up / cashier / shift.
Emergency Plan for POS breakdown
Each outlet cashier counter should have some pre-printed manual guest checks available. When the system breakdown, F&B is to arrange sufficient staff to work in the counter for manual operation. Outlet supervisor to patrol each outlet to assist and to send guest checks to Front Desk for posting. All cashiers are to be trained on the manual procedures for guest check settlement including the use of calculators for bill computation.
1. Waiters/Waitress will take orders from guests using manual Captain Orders.
2. Upon receipt of Captain Orders, the cashier to post the orders to the manual Guest Check immediately.
3. Clip the Captain Orders together with the Guest Checks and put them into pits according to table numbers.
4. When guests ask for the bill, take out the Guest Checks from the pit and calculate the total amounts of the Guest Checks with calculator. After that, give the Guest Check to the waiter/waitress for presentation to guests.
5. Settle Guest Checks by different types of payment methods as follows
Cash
1. Stamp “Paid” to the Guest Check upon receipt of money.
2. 1^st copy of the Guest Check to be returned to guests for record
3. 2^nd copy of Guest Check together with Captain Orders to be kept and submitted to Finance.
4. Mark down details of the Guest Checks to “Cashier Balance Report”.
Credit Card
1. Post the credit card to the EDC machine with the total of the Guest Check amount.
2. Imprint the credit card onto the guest checks.
3. Pass the credit card voucher to the waiter/waitress for guest’s signature and return the credit card and the customer copy of the voucher together with the 1^st copy of the guest check to the guest.
4. 2^nd copy of Guest Check and credit card voucher together with Captain Orders to be kept and submitted to Finance.
5. Mark down details of the Guest Checks to “Cashier Balance Report”.
Guest Ledger
1. Verify the room number and guest name against Registered Guest report that is sent from Front Office.
2. Telephone Front Desk immediately with the details of the Guest Check including room number, guest name, outlet name, Guest Check number, amount and record the name of the Front Desk staff that received the call.
3. Send the 1^st copy of the Guest Check to the Front Desk.
4. 2^nd copy of Guest Check together with Captain Orders to be kept and submitted to Finance
5. Mark down details of the Guest Checks to “Cashier Balance Report”.
Upon the system retrieve to operation, the waiter/waitress has to post and print checks; the cashier will close the check in POS system. For any guest ledger charges, the cashier can use offline to close the check.

All manual check must be attached with the correspondence printed checks .Especially for those checks settled by guest ledger.

Emergency Plan – Reservation Centre
1. The IT Manager, Director of Rooms, Director of Finance and Revenue Manager should be informed immediately.
2. The Reservation staff should be informed
  1. The previous day’s LCU (List of Commission Update) and LPU (List of Priority Club Update).
  2. The present day and next day’s LEA (List of Expected Arrivals).
  3. The present day’s LCD (List of Commission Departures) and LPD (List of Priority Club Departures).
  4. The next day’s LCA (List of Commission Arrivals) and LPA (List of Priority Club Arrivals).
  5. GNR (Reservation Orders).
  6. VID (View Daily Inventory) for the present day and the next three days onward.
3. Record the Reservation Centre bookings and complete the LCU report and send back to Asia Pacific Office for processing.
4. Update the LPU report to calculate the Priority Club Points for in-house guests and send back to Asia Pacific Office for processing.
5. For handling of Priority Club enquiries, Reservation staff should contact the Priority Club Centre directly.
6. Reservation Manager should check the daily forecast against the VID report to make sure that the Reservation Centre Inventory is under control. For any change of the room inventory in the Resrvation Centre, Reservation Manager should inform Asia Pacific Office to update the Hotel.
7. For handling onward reservation for sister hotels, Reservation staff should directly contact the concerned sister hotel by telephone or by fax. Booking can also be referred to the Reservation Centre. Written confirmation should be obtained and presented to guests.
Emergency Plan – Lifts
1. Staff who discovered the breakdown – To inform the Service Centre staff immediately by identifying himself/herself and giving exact details of the breakdown.
2. Service Centre staff - To inform the following:
  1. General Manager
  2. Manager on Duty
  3. Chief Engineer
  4. Director of Rooms
  5. Security Manager
  6. Executive Housekeeper
  7. Director of F&B
3. Engineering Department
  1. To contact the supplier of the lifts immediately.
  2. To go to the location of the breakdown for investigation and rectification
  3. To inform the General Manager, Director of Rooms and Manager on Duty about the progress and status.
4. Front Office Department
  1. To assign Bellman to direct all guests to use staff elevators or staircases.
  2. To instruct the Front Desk staff on how to deal with guest inquiries.
5. Security Department
  1. To assign security staff to hotel lobby, exit points within the hotel, staircases etc. to ensure the security of the hotel.
6. Housekeeping Department
  1. Assign floor supervisors and room attendants on each floor to direct guests to use the staff elevators and/or staircases.
7. Food & Beverage Department
  1. To assign all F&B outlet staff to direct guests to use the staff elevators and/or staircases.
8. Emergency Plan – In-House Paging System
  1. Service Centre staff should have a complete list of hand phone numbers of key hotel staff for emergency contact purposes.
  2. Once the In-House paging system is found to be out of order, the Service Centre staff should inform the IT staff on duty and the Duty Engineer for immediate checking and rectification.
  3. Service Centre staff should inform the Manager on Duty and Department Heads of the breakdown.
  4. During the breakdown period, communication will be through house phones and hand phones.
  5. Once the system is back in operation, the Service Centre staff should immediately inform the Manager on Duty and Department Heads.