Hospitality and Guest Experience Jeopardy

Guest welcomes, service recovery, and hotel and restaurant lingo turned into a team game. Free to copy for your pre-shift meeting, with phones as buzzers.

6 categories · 30 clues · Final Jeopardy · everyone buzzes in from their phone

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The Warm Welcome

$200
Using this once you have learned it makes a returning guest feel recognized.
What is the guest's name?
$400
This Hawaiian word expresses a spirit of welcome and hospitality.
What is aloha?
$600
Guests form one of these within seconds, which is why the first moments of a visit matter so much.
What is a first impression?
$800
Under the 10/5 rule, staff make eye contact and smile at 10 feet, then offer this at 5 feet.
What is a verbal greeting?
$1,000
This Japanese word describes wholehearted hospitality that anticipates a guest's needs before they are voiced.
What is omotenashi?

Anticipating Needs

$200
Remembering a regular's usual drink or favorite table means keeping track of these.
What are guest preferences?
$400
This evening housekeeping service readies the bed for sleep and often leaves a chocolate on the pillow.
What is turndown service?
$600
This hotel staff member arranges restaurant reservations, show tickets and tours for guests.
What is a concierge?
$800
Unexpected extra touches, like a card on a guest's birthday, are meant to create surprise and this.
What is delight?
$1,000
A guest arriving on an early flight may be offered this, access to the room before the standard time.
What is early check-in?

Service Recovery

$200
In the LAST model of service recovery, the letters stand for listen, apologize, solve and this.
What is thank?
$400
Giving a guest a free dessert to make up for a slow kitchen is known by this four-letter slang term.
What is a comp?
$600
Repeating a guest's concern back to show you understand it uses this communication skill.
What is active listening?
$800
Letting frontline staff fix a problem on the spot without waiting for a manager's approval is called this.
What is employee empowerment?
$1,000
The finding that a guest whose problem is fixed well can end up more loyal than one who never had a problem is this paradox.
What is the service recovery paradox?

Front Desk Vocabulary

$200
A guest who books a room but never arrives is called this.
What is a no-show?
$400
Hotels sell more rooms than they have, expecting some guests not to arrive, in this practice.
What is overbooking?
$600
Room revenue divided by the number of rooms sold gives this key hotel metric.
What is average daily rate?
$800
Room revenue divided by rooms available gives this metric, which blends occupancy and rate into one number.
What is RevPAR?
$1,000
Sending a guest with a confirmed booking to another hotel at your expense when you are full is called this.
What is walking a guest?

Dining Room Lingo

$200
In restaurant slang, saying an item is 86 means this.
What is out of stock?
$400
A table seating four guests is called this.
What is a four-top?
$600
This French phrase, meaning everything in its place, describes prepping ingredients before service.
What is mise en place?
$800
The station where plated food waits for servers, checked by the expediter, is called this.
What is the pass?
$1,000
This small complimentary bite before the meal takes its name from French for something that amuses the mouth.
What is an amuse-bouche?

Hospitality History

$200
Kemmons Wilson opened the first of these hotels in Memphis in 1952.
What is Holiday Inn?
$400
This hotelier's empire began with the Mobley Hotel in Cisco, Texas, in 1919.
Who was Conrad Hilton?
$600
The Michelin Guide, which awards restaurant stars, was started by a company that makes these.
What are tires?
$800
This French chef organized professional kitchens into the brigade system.
Who was Auguste Escoffier?
$1,000
This city's Tremont House, opened in 1829, is often called America's first modern hotel.
What is Boston?

Final Jeopardy — Hotel Legends

This luxury hotel brand is known for the employee motto "We are Ladies and Gentlemen serving Ladies and Gentlemen."

What is The Ritz-Carlton?

How to run this board

Great hospitality is a set of learnable habits. This board covers the welcome and first impressions, anticipating guest needs, recovering when something goes wrong, the vocabulary of the front desk and the dining room, and some famous names in hospitality history.

It suits onboarding for new front-of-house staff and a quick pre-shift refresher for veterans. Pair a housekeeper, a server, and a front desk agent on each team so every department learns something about the others.

Consider swapping the Hospitality History column for one about your own city and property, with your restaurants, landmarks, and the questions guests ask you most. A local column tends to be the one people remember.

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