Hotel ONLINE™ | Business Simulation

• Know the factors that affect business performance
• Understand the importance of knowing your market
• Analyse basic financial statements (P&L)
• Make rational, information-based, business decisions
• Make the most of business opportunities (and be prepared for a degree of risk)
• Keep costs under control

This new paperless version of Hotel is run via the Northgate Trainerhub.

Teams study information on-screen on four hotels that are up for lease and, by bidding at an online auction, they each secure one of the four hotels. Teams now get to grips with the state of their particular hotel. They receive the financial accounts for the last six months and lots of other business information.

Basically, the hotels need a total re-brand, starting with the hotel name, mission tatement, refurbishment and slogan - all of which will affect business performance. The key is to understand the market and adopt a strategy to match market needs.

Over six ‘quarter-year’ periods teams make rounds of business decisions that will affect the bottom line. To help with their decisions, teams receive advice on pricing, advertising spend, staffing and other issues - will they accept it? A series of potential opportunities come their way - how will teams evaluate them?

Each period, teams enter their decisions and, once all teams have done so, receive results in the form of a P&L account, together with details of business opportunities and advice. You, as the Facilitator, can keep track of decisions from your hub dashboard.

Optional Crisis Situations: Each quarter a series of crises occur at the hotels that require urgent attention. They all affect the bottom line and handling a crisis badly can make the difference between success or failure!

The winning team is the one with the highest cumulative profit at the end.

Take a look at the starting data teams study online here.

1. Arrange the group into teams (up to four teams of 3-6 per team).
2. Ensure each team has its own laptop. Set up the teams on the Northgate Trainerhub and send the URL and password to access the program.
3. Introduce the session, verbally or with the optional PowerPoint.
4. Start the session. Teams now study the initial data on four hotels, before submitting their bids at auction to secure a hotel.
5. They now study the hotel's recent financial history (P&L account) and a consultant's report. After 10 minutes teams complete their first set of decisions - and in return receive results for their first quarter of trading (Q1) plus advice and details of new opportunities. Optional Crisis situations can be enabled for teams to consider before they get their results each round.
6. They have approx. 20 minutes to analyse their results before making the next set of decisions (Q2). The process repeats for up to six quarters.
7. Meanwhile you have access, on your laptop, to all the teams' decisions and outcomes. If you are running a face-to-face session, you can observe teams at work, to use during the debrief, to talk about teamwork issues.
8. Finally, announce the winning hotel.

• Trainer's Notes
• Trainer's Introductory PowerPoint
• Program (internet access required)
• Hotels' Previous Trading Histories

This activity is supplied digitally via the Northgate Trainerhub, for face-to-face and/or virtual training. No delivery charges apply.

This Northgate Training activity comes with a one-year or five-year licence for repeat use with up to 24 participants at a time, for use by Trainers based at one licence-holding site.

All Trainers physically based at the same office location can access the Northgate resources during the one-year or five-year term, including the digital resources supplied on the Trainerhub via your own site-specific Trainer Dashboard. If you have Trainers based at other locations, and/or remote workers, who would like to access and use the Northgate resources, we can advise further depending on your requirements.

For further information on our licence terms please view the Northgate Licence Agreement.