HOTS SIMULATION, ROUND 1A TAKES PLACE

On Wednesday 1st of October the first round of competition, part A, of HOTS (Hotel Operations Tactics and Strategy) simulation took place. Participants: students of Strategic Hospitality Management module. HOTS is a computer software, designed to simulate the management of hotel in a realistic business environment. It has been an obligatory part of the Strategic module for students of International Hospitality Management since year 2002, however, this year students get to see HOTS from a different perspective - Managing their properties, learning as they go and competing with their fellow students on performance indicators and financial performance.

For those who are not familiar with an extremely busy schedule of students in Strategic semester, here are couple of things that students have to do: Bachelor Dissertation, CBL, weekly reports, presentations, lectures and workshops - just to name a few… One can imagine that squeezing in sessions of HOTS game into that kind of schedule would be tricky, so sessions had to be scheduled in late afternoon and evening. In order to motivate students for one and a half hours of hard brain work, accommodating General Manager of Stenden University Hotel agreed to sponsor our project and now participating students get a great meal with some fresh orange juice to get them going after a long day spent at University.

After lots of struggle and problems with software encountered during the first two trail sessions of HOTS everything finally went smoothly in Round 1A. Final results of the first round of competition were quite impressive: the leading team in Group A managed to generate over $ 1,706.000 in retained earnings and $ 1,770,000 in cash. Leader in Group B: over $ 914,000 in retained earnings and 1,378.000 in cash.

Consequently 3 teams from every group that underperformed had to be eliminated from further competition. Our congratulations to students, who managed to carry on due to their great performance and good luck with further achievements in your entrepreneurship experience!