Hotel abbreviations: ETA, FIT, GIT and the rest of desk shorthand

Hotel abbreviations are the shorthand staff use in e-mails, reports and shift notes. ETA is estimated time of arrival, ETD estimated departure, FIT a free independent traveler, GIT a group inclusive tour. No official list exists: hotels and hotel systems each keep their own set, so confirm local meanings on your first day.

A new receptionist opens the morning report and reads a line like "GIT 32 pax, ETD 05:30, 32 breakfast boxes", and has to act on it before the shift ends. Nobody has explained the letters, and the person who wrote them has gone home. This article gives you the reading habit that gets you through that moment: the core codes, the families they fall into, and the rule for when a code must be confirmed in words before you act on it.

How should you use this list?#

Read every abbreviation as a question about three things: who the person is, when they arrive or leave, and where the money goes. Treat this list as a starting vocabulary, not a standard.

There is no official register of hotel abbreviations. Hotels, chains and hotel software vendors each keep their own set, so the same letters can mean different things in two properties. Ask for your property's own list in your first week and write the answers down.

The shorthand falls into three families: guest and booking words (who is coming and how they booked), people words (who is responsible), and operations words (rooms, housekeeping, money). Knowing the family tells you where to look when a code is unfamiliar. Four neighbouring glossaries carry the codes this article deliberately leaves out: booking and voucher codes, housekeeping terms, room status codes, and front office money words. When you meet one of those, follow the pointer instead of guessing.

A practical rule for writing: expand a code the first time you use it in any message that leaves your department, and never put a code in a message a guest will read. A second rule for reading: if a code can change a price, a room status or a guest's bill, stop and confirm it in words before you act on it. Keep a personal page of the ten codes you meet most; it becomes the fastest reference you own, and it will differ from the page your colleague keeps.

What do FIT, GIT, ETA and ETD mean?#

FIT is a free independent traveler, a guest booked on their own rather than as part of a group. GIT is a group inclusive tour, a group booking, usually through an agency. ETA and ETD are the estimated time of arrival and the estimated time of departure.

ETA is a planning number, not a commitment. The front desk uses it to decide how late to hold a room, when to prepare a late check-in, and when an arrival that never came becomes a no-show. The guest's own message can change it at any hour.

ETD drives the morning: housekeeping sequencing, breakfast timing, luggage handling and any transfer booked for the group. A wrong ETD shows up as a coach waiting at the door while thirty guests are still at the buffet.

FIT and GIT differ in the paperwork around them, not only in the headcount. Group bookings bring rooming lists, block releases, tour leader arrangements and their own cancellation terms, while an individual booking is settled guest by guest. Where the line between an individual booking and a group sits is a commercial decision each hotel makes in its contracts, so do not assume a fixed number of rooms turns one into the other.

PAX means the number of people on a booking, and hotels usually separate adults from children when they write it. FOC means free of charge, a room or a service given without payment. One more distinction worth making early: FIT does not mean walk-in. A walk-in guest arrives with no reservation at all, which is a different process from a FIT guest who booked ahead and simply arrives late.

Who are GM, FOM, GRO, HOD and MOD in an e-mail?#

GM is the general manager, FOM the front office manager, GRO the guest relations officer, HOD a head of department and MOD the manager on duty. The first four are positions; MOD is a shift role that any of them can hold for a night.

MOD is about authority and a phone, not seniority. The hotel decides who carries the duty phone for that shift and what that person may approve without waking anyone. If those limits are not written down, the role becomes either powerless or unlimited.

GRO is not a faster reception desk. Guest relations handles complaints, repeat guests and special occasions, while check-in queues belong to reception; confusing the two delays both. HOD appears in meeting invitations and memos: the weekly operations meeting where department heads agree on the week, and the person to escalate to when a problem crosses departments.

The MOD handover log is the artefact that makes the role work. A short written note of what happened, what was promised and what is still open is what the next shift actually reads. When you meet an unfamiliar title in an e-mail, reply to the person rather than the letters: ask which decisions they own, and note the answer next to the abbreviation.

Why do room and housekeeping codes differ between hotels?#

Because no standards body sets them. Room status and housekeeping codes are common practice, passed between properties and built into each hotel system differently, so VC, VD, OOO, OOS and their neighbours must be confirmed locally.

The distinction that matters most for a manager is whether a code removes a room from sale or only describes its condition. A code that blocks sale changes the number the morning meeting sees, and a code that does not, does not. OOO and OOS are the pair people mix up: one usually takes the room out of the sellable count and the other leaves it sellable but not ready. Confirm which is which in your own system before you quote availability.

HK in a shift note means housekeeping, and it usually appears as a request or a status rather than a person; the housekeeping glossary covers the task-level codes. DND, do not disturb, has two readers: housekeeping, who must not knock, and the front desk, who should not call the room. Passing it on is part of the handover, not an optional courtesy. Room status codes sit in their own glossary with the full list; the habit worth keeping is checking whether a code blocks sale before you repeat it in a meeting.

Which money words appear on a morning report?#

The money words on a report are account words: a folio, a posting, a routing instruction, a city ledger balance. Two rate measures, ADR and RevPAR, also appear as abbreviations and are worth knowing by name.

ADR is the average daily rate: room revenue divided by the rooms sold. RevPAR is revenue per available room: room revenue divided by the rooms available to sell. Both are ratios, so a change in either can come from the price side or the volume side.

Every figure on a report belongs to an account. Before arguing about a number, find the account it sits on, because a charge in the wrong place looks like a missing charge somewhere else. Folio, posting, routing and the rest have their own glossary; use it rather than half-remembering which of two similar words means moving a charge and which means adding one. When you forward a report by e-mail, expand the abbreviations in the covering line: the reader may be an owner from another sector who knows the business but not the letters.

What does a real shift note look like, decoded?#

A shift note is short, coded and written for the next person, which is exactly why it fails when the reader is new. Reading one line at a time, in the order who, when, money, is the fastest way in.

Decode each line into three parts: the subject (a room, a guest, a group), the timing, and the action expected of the next shift. If any of the three is missing, the line is not finished. Watch for lines that carry an approval: a comp, a late check-out given away or a room moved at no charge should name who approved it, otherwise the next shift cannot defend the decision.

Watch also for lines that change availability. A room taken out of order overnight is invisible in the report unless the note says so, and the morning meeting will read a number that no longer exists. Write your own notes in the same shape: subject, time, action, approver. It takes ten more seconds and saves a phone call at three in the morning.

The table below decodes an illustrative shift note. It is an example, not a real note from a real hotel.

For the codes this article does not decode, the neighbouring glossaries carry the rest: hotel vouchers and booking codes for what the agency sent, housekeeping terms and abbreviations for the task-level codes, room status codes for VC, VD, OOO and OOS, and front office terms for folio, posting and routing.

What to do next#

Ask your hotel for its own abbreviation list, or start one today with the ten codes you meet most, each written out in full with one example line. This article gives you the reading habit, the neighbouring glossaries give you the rest of the vocabulary, and the property gives you the meanings that actually apply.