Concierge Job Description

Where would hotel guests be without them?

It's part of the hotel concierge job description to be on the front line, to greet you and to listen to your requests, even to your most bizarre ones and to provide hotel concierge services.

Luckily for us, it's usually with the unusual that concierges shine. Whatever your require, all will be completed and done to your satisfaction while you are away attending your sightseeing tour or your business appointment.

Concierges supply all kinds of conventional tourist and business information and services. If you're a tourist, they will recommend tours, suggest restaurants and shopping locations, make reservations for concerts and dinners and guide you away from the local tourist traps.

If you're a business traveler, they will handle you emails and messages, inform you about where to rent or buy a cell phone, where to hire a language translator or temporary office workers.

And, after a busy day, they will tell you where to rent a bicycle and where is the closest bicycle path.

As long as it's licit and moral concierges can and will do pretty much anything. It could be the simplest thing like sending flowers to a spouse or a customer or booking a yacht or a private plane. When it comes to keeping guests happy, good concierges are limited only by their imagination and obviously not by any standard hotel concierge job description.

The Concierge and the Internet

The Internet can't greet us, can't welcome us, can't smile at us. If a hotel is exceptional and has character, it is, for a very large part, because of people not machines.

A large number of concierge duties and responsibilities could be done by the hotel receptionist using the Internet, but neither the Internet nor the hotel receptionist could replace the concierge or fulfill any hotel concierge job description or concierge definition.

Hotel receptionists greet us, inform us about room availability and answer our queries. Concierge, on the other hand, are the core of the hotel concierge services and everyone's main resource in terms of local knowledge. Concierges are also good at remembering names and faces.

On the one side, tourists, families, business travelers, diplomats, movie stars, politicians, who, of course, have different requirements and preferences.

On the other, hotel concierge job descriptions and CVs to make sure concierges are able to cater to a large variety of customers' needs and means and to offer proper hotel concierge services.

Concierges have to form relationships with many people and, with or without the Internet, good concierges have a large network of contacts at their disposal. Concierges cooperate with each other worldwide and, by doing so, acquire a mass of knowledge that enables them to serve their guests in a way that is always appreciated. Good concierges are well informed and their international network built over the years help make the best concierges, the ones who stay calm under pressure.

What Makes a Good Concierge

Since the role of a concierge is highly visible and the concierge desk is often the first and the last to be seen by the hotel guests, the importance of "carrying oneself properly" is highly stressed.

The job requires to be in good health and physically fit. It also requires to have lots of initiative and the ability to carry more than one task at a time. Concierges make many concierge recommendations, receive many different requests, and many need to be filled on the same day.

Concierges are constantly meeting people from all over the world and they often have to deal with many aspects of our social, personal and confidential life. Approximately 80% are return hotel guests and some feel like friends or family.

Important qualities include discretion and integrity and major attributes include tact and diplomacy. The importance of being a team player is also emphasized.

The concierges are locals and, in order to enable them to provide educated recommendations to their guests, they are often invited to events and shows, to museum exhibits, gallery openings and to fine restaurants by all kinds of establishments and organizations. They want the concierges to send them business, but, as a rule, there never is any guarantee that such concierge recommendations will be given.

How Do They Get Started

Some concierges began as doorman, then were promoted to butler, then to reception clerk and, eventually, were permitted to join the concierge desk which may consist of more than ten staffers.

From the moment they show promise they will work under the tutorship of the chef concierge and will learn about all the inner details of the profession. It takes years of hard work and training to attain the necessary expertise as concierges are always confronted with new tasks.