Hotel Management System Essay

1.1 Introduction The aim of every business is to achieve operational excellence and efficiency. The effectiveness of business processes today has been influenced by technology. However, as computing technology becomes increasingly vital to conducting business and communicating with associates, new and more complex issues must be resolved. Among them is the need to ensure that the benefits derived from using computers are not reduced due to accompanying information management inefficiencies or to the creation of new business risks. A hotel is a building where travelers can pay for lodging, meals and other activities. Hotel Management involves combination of various skills like management, marketing, human resource development, and financial management, inter personal skills, dexterity, etc. Hotels are a major employment generator in tourism industry. Hotel management can be a very lucrative field, both in terms of annual revenues Furthermore, hotels are big attractions to businesses and associations l ooking to hold events. Booking an event means additional revenue for the use of a conference or banquet room, in addition to overnight guests who may use laundry and other concierge services. Work in the area of Hotel Management involves ensuring that all operations, including accommodation, food and drink and other hotel services run smoothly. Hotel management system goes a long way to assist hotels in achieving its aims. Hotel management system as an automated system will enable hotels provide all round services to their various customers or stakeholders through digital or electronic means. The system will assist management in its day-to-day business activities, make decisions. 1.2 Subject and Field of Study The field of study is computer studies and in relation to the subject area being Information Management system and Web Application Development with highlights on Database management, Web and Internet Technology. This project is a web application development project prior to my area of study, the project is designed specifically for hotel businesses that has seen the need of transforming business activities from the manual process to digital process and also businesses that needs safe and proper customer data management in electronic form using the internet. 1.3 Study Objectives The study objectives are categorized into two: 1.3.1 Global Objective: The Global objective of this project is to contribute to the general body of knowledge and research work in the area of developing a hotel management system that will automate the whole management processes of the organization (hotels). 1.3.2 Specific Objectives: The following are the targeted objectives to be accomplished in order to achieve the general objective above. To be able to create mutual communication between customer and business (hotel). To provide a platform for online booking and reservation by customer’s rooms. To provide easy access to customers in viewing and making selection of hotel rooms. To be able to manage fast access to guest(customers) information and easy update of records. To be able to provide security measures to access the hotels information lowering data security threats. To be able to provide better data management facilities To able to enable backups of respective users to be made and accessed when it is needed. 1.4 Problem Statement Intended to explore the impact of the design of Hotel Management System is expected to overcome the general problems in handling issues relating to hotel business activities, managerial activities, difficulties in providing stock control of equipment’s used in the hotel, difficulties on monitoring and tracking customers details and requirements on which the tasks are performed, the time consuming aspects of various customers moving all the way to the preferred hotel to make reservation and bookings as well as viewing at the hotel rooms available. However providing notifications to respective customers about their reservation status is also time wasting. Also management of these hotels finds it difficult manually keeping records of their various employees, clients and other vital hotel related information. Difficulties in making references to old business transactions, data’s and other negotiations and issues concerning security of data and  recovery manners is also considered. It is designed to replace old method of recording information by using pen and paper. 1.5 Research Methodology The proposed research methodology for this project is the â€Å"Waterfall Model†. The waterfall model takes fundamental process activities and it is a sequential design process, often used in software development processes, in which progress is seen as flowing steadily downwards (like a waterfall) through the phases of separate process phases such requirement specification, software design implementation, testing and maintenance. To ensure that our project is in par with our client needs, we used the waterfall model approach in developing the systems. The first process of the model is data gathering. Here we gather information about basic hotel management system functionalities. Joint Application Development (JAD) will be used as fact- findings techniques that will be used to gather the requirements analysis if the Hotel Management System should be implemented in any hotel. After the first phase of data gathering we proceeded in interviewing our clients. We asked about what their expectations were in a hotel management system. Some clients already had a hotel management system. In this case we asked them about what improvements they would have wanted to add in the system such as implementing an attribute for passport information. After gathering all of the information from our clients we proceeded with the next step which is analyzing of data and problem solving. In here we began conceptualizing the components our system needed such as inputting name and creating a log in log out system. We also thought about what elements from our initial concept did not require. After conceptualizing all of the elements we need in creating our system we proceed to the next step which is implementing requirements. In here we decide what applications we need in developing the system. Here we decided to use VB.Net and MySQL as our primary programming languages. Now that we have our tools we proceed to the next step which is system and software design. In here we take our concept design and upgrade that design by implementing our tools in the design. This means we have to understand the requirements of the end user and also have an idea of how the end product should look like. System design also helps us specify the hardware and  system requirements to create the overall system architecture. System design is the (stepping stone towards) our next task which is GUI design. GUI design is the process of designing user interface of the entire system. This means that we start creating actual look of the program for our system. After creating the design we proceed to next step which is system coding. This is where the command lines are assigned to a GUI so that they would have their proper functions. An example would be initiating the connection query in order to connect to the database. After adding all of the required components we proceed to the final step which is system testing and debugging. Here both individual components and the integrated whole are methodically verified to ensure that they are error-free and fully meet the requirements. 1.6 Background and Justification of the Study The purpose of this study is to investigate the extent to which a hotel management system will be used in the organization to manage hotel business processes. A background study shows that the hotel’s daily operation is managed by the Administrative Department. The process starts from customers coming to the hotel to make reservations and enquiries, through the hotel receptionist. The customer booking details will be recorded in a manual form and filed. After making enquiries and finally a reservation is made, the reservation form would be forwarded to the cashier for payment to be made, all involving paper work. Since it involves paper work lots of time is consumed and booking & reservation takes a lot of time. Furthermore, when a customer wants to check out, files will have to be searched and retrieved so that the final operations of checking out a customer will be performed. Some of the service personnel who have studied the issues concerning the manual business operation issued by customers, has contended that the manual operation reduces the operational productivity of the hotel. Because there have been cases records have been mishandled due to human error, some data’s cannot be found etc. HMS helps in managing reservations, bookings, guests and agents. The user can search for the vacant rooms in the hotel and book for it by not necessarily coming to the  physical location of the hotel. An administrator can view the booking details, transactions and coordinate the activity with the agents. He can track the entire site activity. Reservations can also be made through a phone call or an email. 1.7 Expected Outcome of the Project At the end of this project, the following becomes the outcome: There will be a created mutual communication between customer and management. Customers will be enabled make online booking and reservation by searching for rooms. There will be enabled effective storage of customers’ data Administrators will be able to manage fast access to guest files and updates of records will be done effectively and efficiently. Administrators will be provided with better data management facilities. There will be enabled security measures when trying to access the hotels information lowering data security threats. There will be enabled frequent backups of respective user details and access when needed. 1.8 Presentation of Thesis Chapter 1: General introduction is focused on the research which is the Project Proposal. Chapter 2: Literature Review which focuses on history and the outlook of the existing systems. Chapter 3: Methodology. In this chapter, the proposed system is analyzed into details and its importance discussed expansively where context level diagrams, dataflow diagrams, flowcharts will be used to explain the proposed system further. Chapter 4: System Analysis and Design; the study carries on with the design of the system. This chapter will encompass database modeling, class modeling, use case modeling and the relationship diagram of the proposed system. Chapter 5: Testing and Implementation; Implementation of the computer software goes on after the design. The system will be tested and reviewed to reveal errors. In this chapter also the documentation of the completed system. It also lays emphasis on both the users of the system and the system itself. Under the user documentation, the manual for both the user and the expert who will administer the system will be known. Finally conclusion and recommendation will be made as well as observations are identified and the necessary improvement which could be added to the system is made.