A hotel simulation game is a game established to know the potential of hotel and management students or rather to gauge the potential of a hotel staff. However, this game is also used by hotels in the recruitment of new staff in order to raise a team that will develop criteria which encourages profit maximisation of the hotel through team power. These teams should comprise of three to six participants and should not exceed four teams for easier supervision (Lundberg1979, p.20). The game itself should take three to four hours plus the debrief; however, there is no limitation on the number of times this game can be used (Lundberg 1979, p.22)
At the end of this game, a participant should have learnt: accurate matching of a business to the market, analysis of financial reports, maximisation of business opportunities, keeping costs under control and rationality and logicality (Saunders 2000, p.45)
The overall performance was above average since the main objective of establishing this team was team building, and by the end of the game, all the team members had developed a rapport and were working co-operatively with each other. However, there were various setbacks due to different priorities and interests among the team members. Two of the members had good leadership qualities, and so with time, they had taken over the decision making of the team, and the rest of the team members followed suit.
In the first four rounds, the net profit of the hotel was increasing cumulatively by two percent, but a drastic change was experienced in the fifth round where by the net profit rose by thirteen percent. In the sixth round, a drop of two percent was experienced. The outcome was not as expected since the team was highly promising. The average outcome was due to fair decision making rather than the expected good decision making.
The good decisions made were; minimising the cost of production in terms of using the provided working materials sparingly and not wastefully which ensured the effective use of finances; identification of the customers’ tastes and preferences and their implementation in the hotels policy; branding of the business’ name, objectives, motto, and slogan in a way that matched the market demand so as to attract the immediate market; outsourcing of some of the hotels activities which helped in the concentration of the hotels prime objectives and to improve on the quality of service; informed rational market demands and their implementation so as to satisfy them.
The bad decisions made were; recruitment of cheap staff with the aim of maximising profits which led to poor service in the hotel; bad policy on the mode of payment that should be administered which discouraged customers since it look unreasonable to them but to the team members it was implemented to eliminate any chances of losing finances through fraudulent activities among the staff; introducing a method of shift working, which mostly, led to a misunderstanding among the staff on who should work when and how this was to be supervised to avoid biasness.
In the conclusion of the set out plan it was inevitable that for a hotel management to achieve a consistent improvement in the cumulative profit there was a great need of building a team spirit among all staff. Moreover, a good communication system has to be established for easier functioning and running of the hotel. All in all the purpose of the game was to help in setting out a plan to run the hotel so as to ensure maximum profit realisation and the only assumption was reality but, on the other hand, the game signified what happens in a real sense.
References
Lundberg, D. E. (1979). The hotel and restaurant business (3d ed.). Boston: CBI Pub. Co..
Saunders, D. (2000). Simulations and games for transition and change. London: Kogan Page.