WHAT IS HOTEL BUSINESS MANAGEMENT TRAINING

SIMULATION GAME?http://www.hotelsimulation.com/

Dogan Gursoy, PhDdgursoy@wsu.edu

WHAT IS HOTEL BUSINESS MANAGEMENT TRAINING SIMULATION GAME?

• Is a virtual management training game – Participants are divided into teams and assigned the task of

running 500-room hotels in a competitive virtual marketplace. • Each 500-room hotel competes against other 500-room

hotels located in the same destination that are managed by other participants.

• Just like in the real world, hotels compete against each other to attract customers from their target markets that will generate the most revenue and enable the management team to reach their monthly and annual financial and operational objectives.

WHAT IS HOTEL BUSINESS MANAGEMENT TRAINING SIMULATION GAME?

• Utilizes both operational decisions made by the management team for their hotel and operational decisions made by competing hotels to determine demand and revenue for each hotel.

• Operational decisions includes, but not limited to, capital investment, operating expenditures, marketing expenditures and pricing strategies.

• The external factors such as day of the week, demand patterns, etc. are also factored in the simulation.

WHAT IS HOTEL BUSINESS MANAGEMENT TRAINING SIMULATION GAME?

• At the beginning of each month (round of simulation), each hotel management team must determine their objectives and primary and secondary market segments from eight market segments included in the simulation.

• Afterwards, just like in the real world, the management team must make decisions relating to – hotel operations, – marketing, – distribution, – pricing, – operational and capital investment decisions, and – financing decisions to fund capital and operational expenditures.

Directors and their Responsibilities• General Manager

– Responsible for everything

• Director of Retail/Other operations– Spa– Fitness Center– Business Center– Golf Course– Other Recreation Facilities -

Pools, game rooms, tennis courts, ect

• Director of Marketing– All Marketing decisions

• Revenue Manager– All pricing decisions

• Director of F&B – Restaurants– Bars– Room Service– Banquet & Catering– Meeting Rooms– Entertainment– Courtesy

• Director of Rooms– Guest Rooms– Reservations– Guest Check in/Guest Check out– Concierge– Housekeeping– Maintenance and security– Building– Management/Sales Attention– Room allocation

WHAT IS HOTEL BUSINESS MANAGEMENT TRAINING SIMULATION GAME?

• The challenge is to develop and implement a competitive business strategy that results in a competitive positioning in the marketplace and produces good financial performance as measured by market share, occupancy, RevPAR, ADR, total revenues, net operating earnings and net profits

WHAT IS HOTEL BUSINESS MANAGEMENT TRAINING SIMULATION GAME?

• After making decisions for each month, results are made available to all management teams so that they can see how their actions and their competitors’ actions impact the performance of their businesses.

• Just like in the real world, each management team must analyze their previous months’ decisions and the outcomes of those decisions, competitors’ actions and strategies in the previous months, market and demand conditions for each segment before making their decisions.

• In order to be successful, decisions must be rational and logical based on thorough analysis of data from previous months and projections (forecast) for the future.

If you have any questions, you can contact me at dgursoy@wsu.edu