17. Hotel Services. Form of address. Greetings

Nowadays people travel on business and as tourists more than in the past. No businessman can avoid being a paying guest every now and then. In big cities there are a lot of good hotels. Accommodations as well as rates vary from hotel to hotel. There are deluxe hotels, the most luxurious and the most expensive, resort hotels used for entertainment or recreation. Still, if you do not want to get disappointed, it is advisable to book accommoda¬tion beforehand by fax or telephone, especially if you are visiting the town during the summer months.Rooms in most hotels have all modern conveniences: central heating, air conditioning, bathroom, hairdryer, trouser press, telephone, satellite TV and others. Service is usually quite satisfactory. You can take a single room, a double room or a suite, charg¬es varying accordingly. If you can't stand the noise of the street, do not take an outside room, ask for an inside one. Service is supposed to begin at the door. When your taxi stops at the entrance to the hotel the doorman and the bellboy help you with the luggage. The doorman is very important during the reception procedure. He is stationed at the entrance to the hotel and assists the guests in and out of taxis and cars, calls for cabs. In the lobby of a hotel there is a registration or front desk where the guests check in and out, pick up and deposit keys and so on. The guest is given a registration card to fill out the name and permanent address. The desk clerk or receptionist enters the guest’s room number, the room rate, and the arrival and departure dates into the computer.

Forms of Address:

Addressing people by name

It is very important to address people correctly. If a man introduces himself as James, call him James. If he introduces himself as Jim, call him Jim. If he introduces himself as James Brown, address him as Mr. Brown until he asks you to call him James (or Jim).

Informal forms of address

Informal forms of address are used in the family and with close friends. Generally, it is advisable for language learners to avoid using informal forms of address because they may be interpreted as familiarities.

Addressing strangers in public places

Sir – addressing a man:

Madam – addressing a woman:

Miss – addressing a young woman:

Forms of address in correspondence

The salutation at the beginning of a letter is a phrase like Dear Sir (or Dear Madam, Dear Mr. Smith, Dear Ann) that serves as a standard greeting in correspondence. The salutation is followed by a comma both in formal correspondence (Dear Sir,) and in informal correspondence (Dear Robert,). But a colon is used after the salutation in American business correspondence (Dear Sir:).

Formal forms of address are used in the salutation in official and business letters, for example, Dear Mr. Smith, Dear Ms. Taylor, Dear Professor Green, Dear Dr. Briggs. If you don't know the surname of the person you are writing to, you can use the following forms of address in the salutation: Dear Sir, Dear Madam, Dear Sir or Madam.

Greeting is an act of communication in which human beings (as well as other animals) intentionally make their presence known to each other, to show attention to, and to suggest a type of relationship or social status between individuals or groups of people coming in contact with each other. While greeting customs are highly culture- and situation-specific and may change within a culture depending on social status and relationship, they exist in all known human cultures. Greetings can be expressed both audibly and physically, and often involve a combination of the two. This topic excludes military and ceremonial salutes but includes rituals other than gestures. A greeting can also be expressed in written communications, such as letters and emails.Greetings are often, but not always, used just prior to a conversation. Some epochs and cultures have had very elaborate greeting rituals, e.g., greeting of a king. One thing that a traveler to another country notices is that the rules for saying hello are very complicated, and can be quite different than the way it is at home.