What departments does a hotel have?

Six, almost everywhere: rooms (front office and housekeeping), food & beverage, sales & marketing, engineering, finance and human resources. Resorts add recreation, spa and golf; conference hotels add a large banquets department under F&B; small hotels merge the six into three or four people.

Who does a hotel general manager report to?

The owner, or the owner's asset manager, if the hotel is owner-operated; a regional or area vice president if a management company runs it. The brand is a contract, not a boss, though it often feels like one. None of them belong on the property chart.

How many room attendants per housekeeping supervisor?

Twelve to fifteen is typical, with each attendant cleaning 12 to 16 rooms a shift. An executive housekeeper in a 200-room hotel therefore runs 25 to 40 people through two or three supervisors — the widest span in the building.

Does a restaurant org chart look the same?

It's the F&B division on its own. A general manager over a front-of-house manager (servers, hosts, bartenders) and an executive chef (sous chefs, line cooks, dishwashers), with an office manager or bookkeeper for the money. Copy this chart's F&B branch and put a GM above it.

Hotel org chart example

A full-service hotel drawn by division, which is how every hotel on earth is organised: rooms, food and beverage, sales, engineering, finance, people — the heads of department around one general manager.

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The Halloway · 26 people · an invented company, drawn by the layout engine. Six divisions under a general manager. Front desk, housekeeping, kitchen and restaurant teams are stacked; the night auditor's dotted line runs to the financial controller, whose books they close every night.

How a hotel is usually structured

Hotels standardised their org chart decades ago, and the brands enforce it. A general manager, and beneath them the heads of department: rooms, food & beverage, sales & marketing, engineering, finance and human resources. The GM's morning meeting is these six people. Above the GM sits an owner, an asset manager or a management company — off the property chart, but the GM's actual boss.

Rooms is the biggest division and has two halves: front office (front desk, reservations, night audit, concierge) and housekeeping, led by an executive housekeeper with the widest span in the building. Food & beverage splits between the back of house under an executive chef and the front of house under restaurant and banquet managers. Both divisions run around the clock, so each has shift leaders who don’t appear as a level on the chart but hold the building at 3 a.m.

Sales & marketing holds group sales, catering sales and revenue management; finance holds the controller, accounting and often purchasing and IT; engineering keeps the building alive. The night auditor is the classic dotted line — a front desk employee who closes the day's books for the controller.

What's particular here

Housekeeping has the widest span
One executive housekeeper, a couple of supervisors, and 12 to 15 room attendants per supervisor. Stack them. A hotel chart drawn as a row is the widest chart there is.
The property chart stops at the GM
Owner, management company and brand all sit above and don't belong on the property's chart. Put the GM at the top and name the owner in a note if the reader needs it.
Outsourced departments still get a card
Laundry, security, spa and valet are often contracted. If a contractor's manager reports to your GM or a head of department day to day, draw them as a contractor under that person so the building's structure is complete.
Small hotels double up
Under about eighty rooms, one person is rooms division manager and front office manager, the controller does HR, and the chef runs all of F&B. Draw the person once with the wider title, not twice.

Typical titles by level

The vocabulary these charts use, from the top down. Titles vary by country and by company; the levels don't.

Level	Titles you'll see
Leadership	General Manager, Hotel Manager or Resident Manager (larger hotels), Executive Assistant to the GM
Heads of department	Rooms Division Manager, Director of Food & Beverage, Director of Sales & Marketing, Chief Engineer, Financial Controller, Director of Human Resources
Managers and supervisors	Front Office Manager, Executive Housekeeper, Housekeeping Supervisor, Executive Chef, Sous Chef, Restaurant Manager, Banquet Manager, Sales Manager, Revenue Manager, Reservations Manager, Night Manager, Assistant Chief Engineer
Line staff	Front Desk Agent, Night Auditor, Concierge, Bell Attendant, Room Attendant, Houseman, Line Cook, Steward, Server, Bartender, Banquet Server, Maintenance Technician, Accountant, Purchasing Agent, HR Coordinator

Where these charts go wrong

Hotel charts go wrong by drawing every room attendant and server in a row, by leaving off the contracted departments so the security desk answers to no one on paper, by listing the management company’s regional staff as if they worked in the building, and by hiding the night team — the same chart is true at noon and at midnight, and it should show who holds it then.

Questions people ask

What departments does a hotel have?: Six, almost everywhere: rooms (front office and housekeeping), food & beverage, sales & marketing, engineering, finance and human resources. Resorts add recreation, spa and golf; conference hotels add a large banquets department under F&B; small hotels merge the six into three or four people.
Who does a hotel general manager report to?: The owner, or the owner's asset manager, if the hotel is owner-operated; a regional or area vice president if a management company runs it. The brand is a contract, not a boss, though it often feels like one. None of them belong on the property chart.
How many room attendants per housekeeping supervisor?: Twelve to fifteen is typical, with each attendant cleaning 12 to 16 rooms a shift. An executive housekeeper in a 200-room hotel therefore runs 25 to 40 people through two or three supervisors — the widest span in the building.
Does a restaurant org chart look the same?: It's the F&B division on its own. A general manager over a front-of-house manager (servers, hosts, bartenders) and an executive chef (sous chefs, line cooks, dishwashers), with an office manager or bookkeeper for the money. Copy this chart's F&B branch and put a GM above it.

Other industries

Or start from a structure — functional, divisional, matrix or flat — or from your own spreadsheet.

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