Culture Shock at Front Office Department

Culture Shock is defined as a psychological disorientation that most people experience when living in a culture markedly different from one’s own. Culture shock occurs when our cultural clues, the signs and symbols which guide social interaction, are stripped away. Culture Shock can meet everyone and everywhere, . for adults is the experience of feeling like children again, of not knowing instinctively the ‘right’ thing to do. According to Kwintessential, homesickness, boredom, withdrawal, excessive sleep, compulsive eating/drinking, irritability, stereotyping host nationals and hostility towards host nationals are possible symptoms of culture shock. To prevent the potential problems caused by these symptoms, it is crucial to understand the specific cultural differences.
It is critical to understand the cultural differences to prevent unnecessary misunderstanding and miscommunication when serving foreign guests or working with team members from foreign countries, that are also happen with the attendant of Front Office department in the hotel industry. Front Office department is the first and the last department which meets the guest or the client at the hotel that is why, front office attendants are really needs to know and to understand how to handling or treating the guest they will met. As we know, there are so many people with the different types in this world, they are having different habbits, different behaviours, different cultures, different languages and many more. Different type of people different way to handle it. The good attendants could handle all of the type of the guest that their met, but there is no good without no learned. Lack of knowledge, unconfidence, nervous, can make the culture shock happens. Differences in nonverbal communication and unwritten rules play a large part. Wrong treatment for every different type of people can make a problem especially if the problem is about the culture. This is one of the reason why in the hotel industry they are using a common way to greet the guests or the people around them, like take a bow with the smiling face when greeting. That is one of the example to minimize the culture shock at the front office department.. Different people, different way to treat them, wrong treatment can make the culture shock happens. There are so many things to do, to face the culture shock. Front office department is always refreshing the knowledges of the attendants about the languages, cultures, and behaviour. Nobody knows what kind of people they will meet up. There are no prevention for the culture shock, but there are always have way to minimize it or to handle it. Well prepared to face it, it doesn’t mean they could handle it, if the good prepared can handle it, there is nothing will called culture ‘shock’, because it is not shocking anymore.