What is The 10/5 Rule?
The 10/5 Rule is a hospitality service standard: when a guest is within 10 feet, staff make eye contact and smile; within 5 feet, they add a verbal greeting. It sets a consistent, trainable baseline for guest acknowledgment across every department.
Where it came from
The 10/5 Rule spread through full-service hospitality as a simple, measurable way to make "be friendly to guests" trainable. Distance is objective; "friendliness" is not.
How hotels train it
It appears in nearly every front-office orientation, including the Front Office Orientation course in the LMS Systems catalog, because it works for every role, not just the front desk. A houseperson passing a guest in the corridor follows the same standard as a front-desk agent.
Why it matters operationally
Guest-satisfaction scores correlate strongly with perceived staff attentiveness. The 10/5 Rule gives managers something coachable: you can observe it, measure it, and correct it on the floor.
ChatGPT
Perplexity
Claude
Gemini · Google AI Mode
Reddit
X