There are three kinds of management involved with resorts: Front-of-House Management, Heart-of-House Management I, and Heart-of-House Management II. Heart-of-House Management refers to managing the resort areas that support front-of-house operations. This type of management deals with the physical plant, grounds, energy, accounting, and purchasing functions of a resort hotel. These support areas are critical to the successful operation of a resort hotel, but great care is taken to keep the guests from seeing this aspect of the facility to ensure higher levels of guest satisfaction.

A resort is a place used for relaxation or recreation. As a result, people tend to seek out a resort for holidays or vacations. Generally, a resort is run by a single company, which attempts to provide for all or most of a vacationer's wants while staying there, such as such as food, drink, lodging, sports, entertainment, and shopping.

Towns that contain resorts -- or where tourism or vacationing is a major part of the local activity -- are often called resort towns. The term resort is sometimes misused to identify a hotel that does not provide the other amenities required of a resort. However, a hotel is frequently a central feature of a resort.

The Walt Disney World Resort is perhaps the most famous example of a resort in the world, however, resorts exist throughout the world. Resorts are especially prevalent in Central America and the Caribbean.

A resort is sometimes called a destination resort. This is a common usage when the facility provides food, drink, lodging, sports, entertainment, and shopping within the facility so that customers have no need to leave the facility once they arrive. Commonly these facilities are of higher quality than would be expected if one were to stay at a hotel or eat in a town's restaurants.

An all-inclusive resort is a resort that, besides providing all of the common amenities of a resort, charges a fixed price that includes most or all items. At a minimum, most inclusive resorts include lodging, unlimited food, drink, sports activities, and entertainment for the fixed price.

Pros and cons of all-inclusive resorts

A frequent critique of all-inclusive resorts is that they do not help the local economy or that they damage the local environment. People who hold this view usually cite the fact that most resorts are located in relatively remote areas away from major local population centers, making it hard for the people staying there to see any local sights or patronize local business. They also say that most resorts are owned and run by large multinational corporations, such as Club Med, Sandals or Hedonism Resorts thus diverting money away from local companies.

Proponents of all-inclusive resorts point to the fact that these resorts usually bring large numbers of visitors to the country, who must travel through local airports and towns to arrive at the resort. They also state that the resorts provide jobs in areas that are economically impoverished and away from the major centers. Resort popularity can sometimes drive up property values to such a degree that the resort workforce cannot afford to live near their workplace, causing the creation of nearby bedroom communities. This phenomenon is especially prevalent near ski resorts in the American West, and resorts in otherwise impoverished nations.

A Mega resort, a type of destination resort, integrates the services offered by a hotel, casino, dining, entertainment, and shopping into a single, large, and highly stylized or themed venue. The hotels along the Las Vegas Strip are most typically thought of as mega resorts owing to their immense size and complexity.

The first mega resort is generally considered to have been The Mirage given its size and emphasis on non-gaming entertainment options like shopping and fine dining to draw in customers. Mega resorts use the same fantastic or mythical theme (medieval life at Excalibur, tropical at The Mirage, famous cities, etc.) throughout their properties.
A luxury resort, sometimes referred to as an exclusive resort, is a very expensive vacation facility which is fully staffed and has been rated with five stars. Luxury resorts often boast many visitor activities and attractions such as golf, water sports, spa and beauty facilities, skiing, natural ecology and tranquility. There are luxury resorts all over the world from North America to the Caribbean and South America, from Europe to Asia, Africa to the Middle East, and the South Pacific to Australia.

A luxury resort is an elite luxury property which exhibits an exceptionally high degree of customer service and hospitality. A flawless execution of guest services will be the resort staff's and managements main concern. A luxury resort will commonly also feature a superb architectural interior and exterior design as well as an interesting physical location.

The interior design will normally be elegant with stylish bedroom decor, exceptional dining facilities, and manicured landscaping and meticulous grounds. Luxury resorts will often also be in based in exceptionally desirable and strategic worldwide locations, from beautiful tropical islands, to snow caked mountains, to scenic lakes and rivers, to exhilarating cities. The locations will often be famous for featured activities from skiing to golf, water spots, diving, fishing, sailing and nature walks to glamorous shopping and nightlife entertainment.

A luxury resort may vary greatly in character, style and theme from resort to resort. A luxury resort will, however, normally be characterized by a high level of luxury, sophistication and off course price. Accommodations are first class, whether they follow a classic and traditional nature or a more minimalist and modern styling. An unmatched level of comfort will be available at a luxury resort, as well as many personalized services and amenities.

A ski resort is a ski area with a village and/or accommodations and other amenities at the base of the mountain. Ski resorts often have other activities to engage in besides skiing and snowboarding, such as snowmobiling, sledding, horse-drawn sleds, dog-sledding, ice-skating indoor swimming and hottubbing, game rooms, and local forms of entertainment. Ski resorts may be self-contained and entirely devoted to ski tourism (for example Vail ski resort) or they may be near a village or town that had a significant existence before the ski resort was built, such as Jackson Hole, Wyoming or Park City, Utah.